BEING a part of the pro-youth system has been blamed for the failure of many of Scotland’s most promising players to cope with the harsh realities of senior football and establish themselves as professionals.

But for Jack Hendry, the Celtic and Scotland centre half, exactly the opposite has been true. The 23-year-old has encountered his fair share of difficulties and setbacks in his embryonic career to date. The insight he received into the levels of dedication required to make it in the game when he was starting out has enabled him to overcome them all.

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The next derby at Celtic Park will likely see those dressed in blue squeezed into the restricted view area of the stadium.

Miodrag Krivokapic, the former Yugoslavia internationalist who is best known in this country for his spells as a player with Dundee United and Motherwell, had a fair bit to do with it as well.

Hendry left his home in Ayr when he was just 15 to live with Krivokapic, who is now an age-group coach at Parkhead, and his family in Glasgow and found the experience to be daunting and enlightening in equal measure.

It has also proved invaluable. Would the centre half have made the same dramatic progress in the past 12 months without the grounding he received? It is debatable. Around this time last year he was playing for the Wigan under-23 team in empty stadiums. Not he is a league winner with Celtic, has been capped by Scotland and is away with his country on a tour of Peru and Mexico.

“I have grown up quickly,” he said. “I have been away from home for seven or eight years now. I have been away from a young age.

“I had to move schools from Ayr to Glasgow because of football. I went to St Ninian’s with Celtic and I spent a year-and-a-half there. I stayed in digs with the coach, Miodrag. I was learning about cultures as well. I wouldn’t change a thing because I feel it makes me the person I am today. It should also stand me in good stead for the future as well.

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“Mio is a bit intimidating. As a young guy it was a wake-up call. He is so professional in everything he does and that was quite intimidating. He was very strict with the food and everything. He would make us do press-ups and sit-ups before we went to bed. It makes you a better person and you grow up. Little things like that you take in and it makes you a better person.

“He would come through with the press up handles as we were watching the football and he would start doing press-ups. Jokingly, he would say: ‘Okay, your turn’. But he probably wasn’t actually joking! We were all a wee bit intimidated by him so we thought we better follow his lead. Ronaldo says he does it too, so if it’s good enough for him it’s good enough for every other footballer.

“We did it for a laugh, but even in the school he would get us doing press ups and sits ups to build our core strength. KT (Kieran Tierney) was with him as a coach, but not living in the house.

“You’ve got to take as much in as possible. Most of it was very good to take in and I’ve learned to deal better with situations and the stuff that has gone on in my career, that has helped. Starting with Mio at 15 he embedded a lot of stuff in me that I wouldn’t probably have got at home. I appreciated that. I lived with him for two years. He was really good for me.

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“He is very well disciplined and a top professional and he was still in great shape as a coach. His wife and two sons were all well manner and very professional and that was good for them as well. I learned a lot from him and enjoyed my time living with his family.”

Hendry has impressed with the confident way that he takes the ball out of defence in his outings for Dundee, Celtic and Scotland during the 2017/18 campaign and he credits Krivokapic, the former Red Star Belgrade defender, with his ability in that area.

“He was the first coach who helped me because he liked to play from the back,” he said. “He was a ball-playing centre half so I learned a lot from him and different ways to play the ball out. He used to hate seeing players kick the ball out of the park. He wanted it kept. All we did was work on technical stuff and he bedded that into me as a player. So for me, Mio was a top coach.”

Hendry has certainly needed to be mentally strong to withstand the disappointments he has encountered. His spell at Wigan quickly turned awry when Gary Caldwell, the manager who had signed him after being impressed with his performance for Partick Thistle in a pre-season friendly, was sacked shortly after he arrived.

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“There are a lot of players who go in and out the door at Wigan,” he said. “They are not a club renowned for bringing through youngsters. I didn’t know that until I was in the building. There weren’t many young players who got a chance. They mainly went for experience because they were going for promotion and were looking for it quickly.

“It was also difficult there because there wasn’t a sustained manager. It was difficult and when new managers came in they went for experience so it was difficult to breakthrough.

“It was difficult, but you need to stay strong mentally. I did that and I got what I needed out of those games because the under-23s is a lot different to the first-team. Maybe playing in these matches made me even more determined to play and was probably the reason I decided to come back up the road.”

It has been a rapid rise to prominence. But Hendry, who made his Scotland debut in the friendly against Hungary in Budapest in March shortly after moving to Celtic in a £1.5 million transfer, has no inferiority complex. He is confident he can cope at the highest level with both club and country.

“I have always believed in my ability,” he said. “I feel I am capable of playing on this stage and you need to have that about you to believe because if you go out there with any doubts then I think that might impact your game. When I made my Scotland debut I just went out with the mindset that I was ready and good enough.

“I have always had that ambition to play for Scotland. It is a massive thing for me and I am sure it is for others that they want to play for their national team and to represent their country. It is a massive honour and something I have always targeted to do. Maybe I didn’t think it would happen as quick, but that was the level I wanted to play at and I knew I could play at.”

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The prospect of playing Peru in front of 45,000 of their supporters in the National Stadium Lima on Tueday or against Mexico in the Azteca Stadium where a crowd of 87,000 the following Saturday excites him.

“Those are the type of arenas you want to play in,” he said. “I feel I thrive in that type of environment and playing at Celtic Park has prepared me. It is where you want to play your football against top players and a big crowd like that.

“I enjoyed coming on in the Rangers game at Ibrox this season. If you strive in these sorts of games then you will get your rewards. I got noticed in that game and that is good because everybody wants to be a big-game player. I can be that so anytime I get my chance in front of the television cameras or wherever I am I have to show people what a good player I am.

“With me it is glass half full because as soon as you get those negative thoughts in your mind that it will start to impact on your game. “I just go out believe in myself, do well show I am good enough to play here and if I do that then everything else should take care of itself.”