IT enabled James Bond to cope with the fiendish predicaments he encountered in the world of international espionage - and Pat Stanton to deal with the equally exacting demands of representing Hibernian.

Bonyrigg Rose, the Midlothian junior side who will take on Hibs in the fourth round of the Scottish Cup at Tynecastle on Saturday, may not be the most famous or glamorous club in the country.

But turning out for the New Dundas Park club, as two of their celebrated former players have subsequently found, can very much be the making of a man.

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“I think Sean Connery was helped in his career as a spy by playing against some of these tough teams for Bonnyrigg,” said Stanton. “If you can go to Ormiston and get a result and you’ve done well.”

Stanton, the cultured midfielder who starred for Hibs, Celtic and Scotland during his accomplished professional career, was farmed out to Bonnyrigg for two seasons as a youngster in the early 1960s.

It was a move the precocious teenager, who had just signed for the Easter Road club, was opposed to at first. It turned out, though, to be a hugely beneficial experience.

“The manager at Hibs, Walter Galbraith, reckoned it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go to Bonnyrigg,” he said. “There is a big gap between juvenile football and senior football. To bridge that gap you’ve got to toughen up a wee bit.

“He thought it would be a good idea to spend a season at Bonnyrigg. I didn’t want to do it, but it turned out to be some of the best advice I ever received.

“Oh, there were some wild men. But there were some great players, some terrific players, as well. There were players who had played at senior level and had stepped down. It was a hard league.

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“The trainer at Bonnyrigg, a chap called Billy Durie, was a real hard, hard man. I remember him saying to me: ‘Can I give you a bit of advice? If people knock you about, it’s your own fault. There is no point complaining to the referee, you’ve got to look after yourself’. Again, it proved to be a real good bit of advice.

“The first game I played was against Dalkeith Thistle away. They had a guy called Duncan Henderson. He would have given Mike Tyson a hard time. It was tough playing against him. I can remember coming off the park after the game. He tapped me on the shoulder and said: ‘Welcome to junior football!’ But it did me the world of good.”

Stanton added: "The toughest place to go was Ormiston Primrose. There had a guy called Hague who was quite frightening. I was out on the park and on my own and I had to look after myself. It was just rough.

“The fact I was a signed Hibs player meant they maybe targeted me a wee bit. It wasn't verbals. They would clatter you. I had to think about the trainer's words and make sure if they did something to me you had to do it back. But I learned a lot from these guys and after the match they were terrific with me.

"We had one or two guys who could handle themselves too, right enough. We had John Cattenach who was about 6ft 4ins and came from the West of Scotland. He was a big intelligent man, very bright, but on the park he was a psychopath. I learned a lot from him as well. It was a great help to me."

Stanton’s experiences - and those of many others who have flourished after spells in the junior ranks over the years – are interesting from a modern perspective given the worryingly small number of of players progressing from the pro-youth system in this country into the senior game.

The 72-year-old, like many others, believes our most promising kids would benefit more from playing competitive football against grown men rather than opponents of the same age.

Read more: Rudi Skacel: Even old ladies and small children were calling me a 'refugee' at Easter Road on Christmas Eve

“You learn from the level of game you are in,” he said. “The young players who opted to stay at Easter Road, guys who signed at the same time as me, only got a game every three or four weeks. You’ll not improve playing every three or four weeks.

“I was at Bonnyrigg playing every week, going to places like Ormiston and Linlithgow and fighting for my life. When I came back into Easter Road at the end of the season I had passed them by, simply because I had been playing every week. I wasn’t a better player than them, but they were only playing every three or four weeks. You’re not going to improve doing that.

“It certainly didn’t do me any harm. I think when they did away with reserve league football that had an adverse affect on the game. You had young players and older players, guys coming back from injury, all together.

“When every player is 17 or 18, who is helping who? I know a lot of things come down to money, but doing away with the reserve league was a step backwards in my opinion.”

Stanton will be at Tynecastle on Saturday as a guest of Bonnyrigg and believes they should approach the match with the defending champions in a positive manner.

"If you start with the wrong attitude you’ll create problems for yourself," he said. "There is no doubt about that. These boys will be up for this.

"You’ve got to give your opponents respect. But it doesn’t matter who it is. You’ll create problems for yourself if you go out thinking ‘we’ll win without trying to hard’. That is when you create problems for yourself."

"Pat Stanton was speaking at a William Hill media event. William Hill is the proud sponsor of the Scottish Cup."