The Aberdeen U18s begin their Club Academy Scotland League campaign on Friday at home to Celtic. It has been a very challenging year for Youth football so everyone involved with the young Dons is eagerly anticipating the new season – including coach Barry Robson.

“Pre-season has been good. The boys have worked really hard. It has not been as free flowing as we would have liked, there have been a few games cancelled because of COVID, which has been the case for a lot of teams. But we got the work into the players that we wanted to in order to get ready for the start of the season so they will be fit and raring to go on Friday.

“The games we have played, we have had some good results. You can never tell with pre-season but the one thing we have tried to do is get the players fit. We want them to be fitter than the other teams. That is something I think any Aberdeen team should always be – the fittest team in the league. It does not cost anything to be the fittest team. The games that we have played in, we have looked a bit ahead of the opposition. But you still never know until the season starts and we will get properly tested in the first two games of the season, against Celtic at Cormark Park and then away to Rangers.

“The way they have trained over the last four, five weeks, our new boys will never have trained like that before. They will never have trained at that intensity before. It was something new for them but they will get better and stronger at an age when they will develop naturally anyway. We will just try and develop them quicker. It will have been a shock to the system, the demands that have been placed upon them but to be fair, they have all attacked it well, it looks like they have all looked after themselves away from the training pitch and made sure they got plenty of rest, which is just as important as the work we do. They have been very professional with their work, they have listened to what Scott (Anderson) and I have told them and this week is just about trying to fine tune a few things ahead of the first game of the season.

“It is not ideal with us being based at Pittodrie and training at Cormack Park, there are a lot of logistical challenges, it has not been easy but you have to try and make the best of that. Sometimes a situation like this can bring a group closer together. It is great that the club have put the funding in place to keep Pittodrie going as well during the week and it has been very good for us. Hopefully by next month we will all be under the same roof at Cormack Park, but we just do not know at the moment.

“It will be good to get back to a league situation where the boys are going to play every week. They have the target of doing as well as they can in this competition and it is the competitiveness that burns inside that you want to release. They can go and try and achieve something in the league.

“It is just great to be playing regular football again.

“When the league ended about 18 months ago, we were at the top of it, that is the frustrating part. Although we try and make the results side of things as important as possible, it is all about the development of the players. That is the key focus.

“I have not set any targets. We always knew that we were going to be young this season. Because of the situation last year, we did not take a lot of the 2004s in, so we therefore had to take some of the 2005s up. It will be a difficult season for them as they will be playing against boys that are two years older than them most weeks. But it is a season I am looking forward to. I am looking forward to the challenge and seeing how the boys respond. They will have been used to playing against guys their own age for most of the time coming through the Academy, now they are going to come into an age group where boys are going to be quicker and stronger. Each club will have kept all their best players so they will have to learn to deal with the physicality, and they will have to learn that football is not always nice and pretty and easy. They are going to have to learn the other side of the game which is very important if they want to go and play for the first team and that is what it is all about.

“The U18s, every one of them will have been inspired by watching Calvin this season. He has done incredibly well, especially when I look at him and think about how little football he played last year because of the lockdown. He has done very well but he needs to keep his feet on the ground because there is still a long way for Calvin to go yet. Like any player, there are areas of his game that he needs to improve. His strength and speed need to improve but that will come. He needs to keep his head down and keep working hard if he wants to stay in the manager’s team. That is the main focus for him. The exact same for Jack MacKenzie as well although he is a couple of years older and therefore a little bit more experienced.

“The biggest thing they need to do is stay in the team and make sure they are performing to their best every week because if you don’t there is only one thing that happens – someone replaces you. That is football and the reality of playing for the first team. it is the same message that we tell all the age groups.”

Barry will be watching Calvin, Jack and all the first team on Thursday and cheering them on. It is a country where he has played before and has happy memories of scoring at the national stadium. Well, he claims that he scored …

“I was there with Scotland in 2008. We beat Iceland 2-1 in a World Cup qualifier when George Burley was the manager. I set up the first goal when my corner was headed in by Kirk Broadfoot, who I think was making his Scotland debut. Then James McFadden missed a penalty, we both ran in for the rebound and I thought I had put the ball into the net. I was given the goal only for it to be taken off me afterwards! I am still not happy about it!!

“It was actually a really good win as Iceland had a very strong side at that time, they had a lot of boys playing in the English Premiership. What I also remember from the trip is that Reykjavik is a lovely city, and it is a beautiful country so it is a shame the Aberdeen fans are not able to travel.”