100 not out for James McCarthy, the 18-year-old veteran

THERE ARE about to be 100 reasons why James McCarthy is an 18-year-old product of Scottish football like no other. The Hamilton Accies wunderkind will bring up a century of senior games when he takes to the pitch at Ibrox this afternoon for a Homecoming Scottish Cup quarter-final tie. No player in this country has made it to the three-figure milestone before their 19th birthday; still a full eight months away for McCarthy.

"It's great. I'm delighted to break records but the most important things is getting into the next round," says the teenager, with a winning mix of self-assurance and self-effacement. "I'm going to keep my feet on the ground. The gaffer has given me the chance, so it's all down to him. I can't thank him enough."

Hype and happenstance have undoubtedly accompanied the Castlemilk-born attacker's ability to accumulate appearances rapidly since his first-team debut at 15. But those factors cannot explain away the contribution the player of the fifth round has made to the remarkable upward mobility of his club, currently enjoying their best season in the post-war era. Nor the lofty claims made of him by sensible judges.

His manager, Billy Reid, would normally be regarded as one of those sober arbiters, but he cannot help but gush over his great prodigy. He accepts McCarthy looked like a ball boy who had simply strayed too far when he was sent on as substitute against Queen of the South on September 30, 2006. He accepts, too, he had to tread a fine line when it came to duty of care for a skelf of a boy. Even Reid's father then questioned his playing a 15-year-old who "wasn't ready". Now he applauds his son's foresight.

"It was right in a sense; James wasn't ready in that he wasn't always having the influence people thought he should," the Hamilton manager says. "He was an easy target so people said I should leave him out. But I just saw something that made me want to give him those first 20 games, so he could learn what it was all about. He did, and this why he is the player he is today. Young players can often come in and play a few games then fade out. We've had a few who couldn't handle it. Some can come in for half a dozen games and then you don't hear of them again. But that's not going to happen with James McCarthy. He's the real deal; he's here to stay.

"His consistency levels are fascinating and his ability to be strong enough physically to adapt to playing week in, week out, is remarkable. He is silky but the beauty of him is that he does the rotten part of the game as well. He takes the hits. He gets battered, but picks himself up."

McCarthy's decision to play for the Republic of Ireland will ensure he is battered orally by many among the Rangers legions this afternoon. Some may even adapt the racist Famine Song in his "honour", as they did in games between the sides at New Douglas Park.

Yet the issues can be clouded in this particular McCarthy witch-hunt. The baiting of the youngster throughout Scotland, as with other Republic of Ireland internationalists through grandparentage Aiden McGeady and Jim O'Brien, may be tiresome, at the very least. But it is surely human nature that his footballing detachment from Scotland, the country in which both he and his parents were born and raised, will be the source of resentment. If McCarthy had committed to England, his ears would be bashed as soundly at away grounds. Patriotism does not explain some Rangers fans' antithesis to the player, however. Only an allergy to anything perceived as Irish Catholicism does.

"It doesn't bother me," he says. "You hear it now and again when the ball's out of play. But when you are concentrating on your own game and trying to do your job, you don't hear it. I'll just get on with it and I have the backing of all the boys plus the gaffer and the backroom staff."

McCarthy's temperament on such occasions has been as impressive as his toughness in coping with the physical rigours. Reid confesses he has had concerns over burn-out but tailors his training programme to take account of his still-developing limbs and muscles. No longer, though, does he feel the need to protect the club's leading performer from the media spotlight. "It is a great delight to me how he has matured as a person," the Hamilton manager says. "At 15 he was really shy but now he is great with the press, great around the club, and has really came out of his shell and become a confident young man."

The self-belief of McCarthy, who moved to Hamilton from Livingston Boys Club aged 14 after Celtic passed on him following trials, is sufficient for him casually state he has "coped no bother" with the step up to the Scottish Premier League. His conviction that he has "improved a lot this season" and can continue to do so in his present posting leaves him in no hurry to test his talents in more exacting surroundings. At 16, he turned down the chance of a move to Liverpool because he valued constant senior involvement above all else. In the three years since, his priorities do not seem to have changed. Even when no Hamilton games seems complete without a dozen scouts from English clubs scrutinising him from the stand. Hamilton are understood to have placed a £2m bounty on his head – a sum considered too hefty by an interested Celtic.

"If an offer comes in we'll need to sit down and talk to the club," he says. "But I'm happy where I am at the moment. I don't want to move and sit in the stand or play in the reserves. If the timing was right, I'd go down and look at the place, see what it was like and see what happened from there. I'm not going to get carried away."

James McCarthy might then be just about the only person not getting carried away with James McCarthy.