Billy Kirkwood sits outside on the steps of Murray Park, legs splayed. One foot in the past, the other in the future. The coach of the Rangers Under-19 side has obvious hopes for the future. The past has a signficance, too, as Kirkwood is a veteran of a UEFA Cup final with Dundee United in 1987.

Kirkwood talks passionately about his playing days, but it is his youth team that demands most of his attention now. It is a squad that has completed back-to-back league and cup doubles and is regularly touted as having the potential to supply the backbone of Rangers sides to come. Andrew Shinnie, John Fleck and Georgios Efrem are thought to be gilt-edged prospects.

Kirkwood, with both professional courtesy and the knowledge that events and young players do not always turn out as expected, declines to mention individuals. But he does concede: "We have hopes of that team. I believe it is the best squad, bar none, at that level. What I am hoping is that, if some lads don't make it at Rangers, they make it elsewhere. They are a good bunch. All we can do is give them facilities, give them the coaching, but we cannot give them that desire to go and knock on the first-team door."

The under-19 players have already been immersed in the ethos of winning. Kirkwood said: "Sometimes they first-team coaches want a practice match and they send round for some of the boys. I insist that when they young players go round they have to have that desire, that ethos of the will to win.

"It is there in the first team. That desire to do well for themselves, to do well for the club, rubs off on everybody. The youngsters see that and we try to encourage that in them. We want that in-built because sometimes someone coming from outside the club into the first-team finds that it is a culture shock for them," he added.

"We want our young boys to grow up with that winning mentality. If they have that sort of affinity with the club, it makes them become a better player for the club."

Kirkwood has a firm grip on reality over the role of coaches in the modern football club. There is one constant from Walter Smith through to Jimmy Sinclair, head of youth development, to Kirkwood, to the youngsters. "Everything is about winning," he says. "Sometimes that makes it a wee bit harder to get the players through. The younger kids maybe have to show a wee bit more patience than those at smaller clubs. But we must ensure that when they do break through they are ready for that challenge."

The boys know what is required. "They must have one message for the gaffer: pick me," he said.

This strength of character is the difference between the player who makes it and the one who drifts out of the game. "It comes from within," says Kirkwood. "But a lot of our kids go to the first-team games on a regular basis and they see what it is all about. The mentality at the bigger clubs is a vital thing; players have to have it.

"It's maybe different for a player in a first division team or lower Premier League team and you are playing in front of 5000 but, at a bigger club, there will be 50,000. And if you make a mistake you will hear about it," said Kirkwood.

"It is how you handle that mistake. That's the most important thing. There has to be a courage to take the ball. You have to be courageous to handle the situation that Rangers' first team is in at the moment. That is what we have to try to attain with the youngsters."

He concludes softly: "It is about talent, but it is also about the desire. The bottom line is getting this group of players through towards the first team. Once they are there, it is entirely up to them."

This strength of character was apparent in Kirkwood as a player. He was woefully under-rated as a midfield player with Dundee United. "I was a worker," he said. "My job was to get the ball to the good players like Paul Sturrock, Ralph Milne, Eamonn Bannon."

He was much more than that in a Dundee United side that combined unstinting effort with dollops of skill.

The team achieved unprecedented domestic success and were robbed in the semi-final of a European Cup in 1984 when a crooked referee helped Roma to an aggregate victory. Less controversially, United also lost to Gothenburg in a two-legged final in 1987 in a UEFA Cup final that has similarities with the Rangers situation of today.

"We played the two legs with Gothenburg with a Scottish Cup final against St Mirren sandwiched in between. Gothenburg were only six or seven games into their second bit of the season, so they were fresh," said Kirkwood, of a final United lost 2-1 on aggregate. "We lost by one goal in Sweden, but we knew we had a chance at Tannadice, particularly if we scored first. I hit the goalkeeper's face in the first minutes, but they scored and we were up against it."

He does not blame tiredness for the final defeat and says Rangers will only feel the exhaustion when the season ends. "The energy levels were still there after all the games we had," he said. "It's when the season is over, that is when you feel it. People will say Rangers are tired and so on, but it will only kick in after the season."

Casting his mind back to 1987, he says: "Adrenaline keeps you going . . . and the will to play in these games."

A shout interrupts the reverie.

A youth team player demands the attention of the coach. The past has been revisited. The future is calling.