Senior experience helping Ross County under-18s star Calum Brown shine for young Staggies in Scottish Youth Cup run ahead of quarter final at Livingston
Calum Brown says his experience in senior football is giving him confidence that he can go and compete against anyone in the under-18s.
The Ross County teenager will be part of the young Staggies squad competing in the quarter finals of the Scottish Youth Cup against Livingston tomorrow night.
However, he has already had tastes of senior football at various levels.
A brief loan spell in the Highland League with Forres Mechanics at the start of the season was cut short, and he has since joined Invergordon in the North Caledonian League.
Coupling that with training with Ross County’s first team on a day-to-day basis, and Brown has had to learn to grow up quickly in a footballing sense.
While posing its own set of challenges, it also means that Brown is seeing a difference when playing for the club’s under-18s, and he is now in a position to set the example for even younger players being pushed up to the age group.
“Being at Invergordon has helped a lot,” he explained.
“It’s obviously more physical playing against men in the North Caledonian League, which has helped me be stronger against the under-18s.
“They’ve got age on me as well, so they will be bigger and you have to get stuck in and keep working hard. It’s the same when I’m in the first team training here at County – you have to have everything right when you’re with them and up your standards.
“Coming back and playing against people who are my age, I do feel a difference.
“I had a spell at Forres last August too, but that didn’t last very long in the Highland League. I didn’t get much game time, so I dropped down to the North Caley and I’m playing 90 minutes every week, so I’m enjoying it there.
“Coming back from men’s football, you’ve got to be physical, but you also have to be able to bring it down and play with the younger ones.
“I have to show them what skills you can take from the North Caley into the under-18s squad, and hopefully they can help you as well.”
Originally from Inverness, Brown joined the County youth set-up when he was 10 years old.
This Scottish Youth Cup run to date may already be a career highlight for the youngster, who signed his first professional terms towards the end of 2024.
After knocking out Elite League outfits Motherwell and Hibernian in the last two rounds, County go up against more familiar foes in the last-eight in the form of their league rivals Livingston, but that will only give Brown and his teammates confidence.
“The elite teams obviously have better quality, but at the end of the day it’s about what we’ve done on the pitch,” he added.
“We won our battles, and we came away better off.
“We’ve beaten two elite teams, so I don’t see why we can’t go and beat Livingston, who are in our league.
“We’ve played them many times, whereas we had never played Motherwell or Hibs. We know what we’re going into, and we know we can beat them.”