CELTIC’S Scottish Premiership encounter with Hamilton Accies this weekend will be their first competitive game in almost five months. The season ahead is Scott Brown’s 14th in green and white, and the 35-year-old said it’s a magnificent honour to captain this successful side.

Since first donning the armband in 2010, Brown has won an incredible 19 trophies at Celtic and he has no intention of slowing down in the coming campaign.

“It’ll be good to get back into competitive games, the lads have missed it,” said the skipper at a pre-match press conference at Lennoxtown. “We’ve worked hard in the extended pre-season. It’s been a long time since we’ve had competitive games, so it’s huge for us that we hit the ground running.

“For me, it’s magnificent to be captain of this club. I came here to win trophies and that’s always my aim. I want to be winning trophies and challenging. We’ve still got a trophy to be competing for from last season, so we’re looking forward to that as well.”

Brown stressed that, despite external hype, he and his colleague will play game-to-game, which starts with Hamilton on Sunday. He said pressure is part of the job at Paradise, and that he has an intrinsic desire to win no matter the contest.

He added: “That hunger for success is part of me. I’m very competitive and I always want to win games. Whether that’s at training or in games, in front of 60,000 fans or nobody, I want to win.

“We know it’s going to be different, playing without any fans, but we’ve had a couple of games recently to try it out and see what it’s like and we’ve managed to come through it and play well. Hopefully we can continue that on Sunday.”

Scott Brown: It’s magnificent to be captain of this club