The on-form Highland outfit’s 7-1 demolition of hapless Queen of the South at Palmerston Park last Saturday, a resounding win which kept them on top of the William Hill League One table after 10 matches, took their goal tally in the league to 38.

No other senior club in British football, never mind the Scottish game, has been as deadly up front in their division during the 2026/27 campaign. Boreham Wood in the National League in England have banged in 34 in 13 fixtures. They are positively profligate in comparison.

County have also been on target no fewer than 43 times in the Premier Sports Cup and KDM Evolution Trophy. A ridiculous 14-0 mauling of a young and understrength Hearts B team at the Global Energy Stadium last month boosted their numbers somewhat. Still, 81 goals in 22 games, an average of 3.68 per match, is some going.

Scoring is, as any manager will tell you, the most difficult thing in football, but Ross County have well and truly cracked the code.

It is little wonder that Brian Graham - the evergreen striker who is, despite the fact he is set to turn 39 next month, their leading marksman – is loving being a part of things.

Graham is in his 21st year as a professional footballer, but he has never played for such a prolific team. He is firmly on course to top his best haul for a season, the 27 he netted for Raith Rovers in the 2012/13 term, in the coming months.

“I scored a couple against Queens at the weekend to get to 15," he said. "I was thinking, ‘Brian, it’s not even November yet’.

“A friend of mine was watching Soccer Saturday on Sky Sports and he texted me to let me know that when our score came up Tim Sherwood said, ‘County must be playing Powerleague up there!’. It is nice to know the goals we are scoring are getting noticed. It draws attention to the league too.

“We can’t get too carried away. We have a difficult game against Airdrie this Saturday and then we play Hamilton, who are also unbeaten and level with us on points, on Tuesday night. I'm old enough and experienced enough to know we can't look too far ahead. But I’m selfish and want to score more goals.”

Brian Graham in action for Ross County against Dunfermline Athletic this season (Image: Neil Hanna / Shutterstock)

He is in the right place. So what is the secret of Ross County’s success? Is it simply that they are a full-time club in what is predominantly a part-time league? Is it because they have a far larger budget than their third tier rivals? Graham bristled at those scurrilous suggestions.

“Hamilton are full-time, Airdrie are full-time and Queen of the South are full-time,” he said.  “There are a lot of full-time teams in the league. It’s not like it was in the past when there was one full-time team and the rest were part-time. It's a very challenging division.

“What we have done so far has not been down to money. The manager has had to deal with budget cuts. There have been a lot of changes within the football club in the background as well. That's what happens when a team gets relegated.”

For Graham, who has coached Partick Thistle Women and taken interim charge of the first team at Firhill in the past, his old compadre Stuart Kettlewell deserves enormous credit for the revival which County have enjoyed during the past four months.

Kettlewell has impressed him with the squad he has assembled, the team spirit he has fostered, the tactics he has deployed and the dedication he has shown. But he expected nothing less when he agreed to sign after departing Falkirk in the summer.

“The start we’ve had is down to the management team here,” he said. “Since day dot, Stuart has spoken about the need to change the culture within the football club. He has been able to do exactly that.

“It wasn't a happy place when he came in at the tail end of last season. It had been a bad season. There was no confidence within the group. There were also a couple of bad eggs in the changing room. But he has turned things around.

“The changing room is so important. If you have wee cliques here, there and everywhere you are in trouble. But nobody is mumping and moaning now. Everybody has a good attitude, everybody gets on, everybody works hard, everybody has a laugh together. There's no selfishness within the group any more. There is a real feelgood factor. That is what you need.

“Stuart loves the game and he is very passionate about it. He's first in the building every morning and last out at night. He's football daft. He's very, very good at his job and he takes it very seriously. We see it every day on the training ground.”

Jimmy Hogan, the former Burnley, Fulham and Bolton Wanderers player and Celtic coach who is widely credited with inventing Total Football by historians of the sport, would be proud of the way that County have been playing under former Motherwell and Kilmarnock manager Kettlewell this term.

Ross County manager Stuart Kettlewell (Image: Pete Summers / Shutterstock)

“Every single player knows where they have to be and what they have to do,” said Graham. “Everyone knows their job. But the manager has given us the freedom to roam too. For example, if a right-back comes into midfield, the midfielder then goes to right-back.

“As long as we've got our structure behind the ball and we're playing the formation the manager wants us to play, it doesn't really matter who is where. If somebody's out of their natural position, somebody else goes and fills in.

“We've played different formations over the course of the season as well. We started the season off playing a 4-3-3. In the last couple of games, we've played a 4-2-3-1. But we've played a 3-5-2 on a few occasions. There's real versatility within the group.”

Graham raved about his team-mates, about his fellow forwards Adam Emslie and Kieran Phillips, midfielders Richard Chin, Ross Docherty, Chris Hamilton, Jamie Lindsay and Luke McCarvel, defenders Akil Wright, Lewis Reid, Dylan Smith and Lewis Strapp and goalkeeper Brad Foster, but his vast experience has clearly been crucial.

“I just do as I'm told!” he said. “But I'm lucky enough to have the armband and be the captain so I do try to help people as much as I can. I've always had that in my game. I speak on the pitch, I communicate with the other players. Sometimes they might not like what I've got to say, but I think they know it comes from a good place.

“Other players will tell me the same. It doesn't matter that I'm 38 and the oldest in the squad, I'm still learning every day as well, I still need to get better. You've got to have that mentality. You're never the finished article.”

The former Morton, Raith Rovers, Dundee United, St Johnstone, Hibernian, Partick Thistle and Falkirk man is adamant he is as good a striker now, when it comes to his mentality certainly, as he has been at any stage in his career.  

“When you are younger, you can be a bit grumpier,” he said. “Everything can get on top of you. As you get older and wiser you just go out and enjoy it. I’ve taken the shackles off since I turned 30. I wish I had the same mentality when I was 20, 21.

“I used to worry about things. I'd dwell on a chance I'd missed, I'd worry if I'd had a poor game. Nowadays? Big deal! I just go again on Monday morning, work hard in training during the week and try and rectify it in the next game.

“That's something I'm trying to pass on to the younger players I'm playing with here. I say to them, ‘Don't get too caught up in it. Just go and enjoy it. When you feel freer you play better’.”

Graham continued, “I want to play as long as possible. I will try to go into management eventually. That's something I'm very passionate about and have really enjoyed doing. I will definitely do that once I eventually retire from playing. But I don't know when that's going to be.

Ross County's players (Image: Pete Summers / Shutterstock)

“I've not really put any timescale on it. I've not really thought about it. I'm just wanting to enjoy my football. Who knows if this is my last season? Who knows if I've got another season in me? But I don’t see any reason to stop.”

He will have an awful lot to offer the Scottish game when he does finally decide to step into the dugout. He has strong, not entirely favourable views about many aspects of modern football. About pro-youth academies especially. 

Scotland have, with Kieron Bowie playing for Sassuolo, Ross Stewart returning to action at Swansea City, Robbie Ure growing in confidence at Sevilla and James Wilson getting regular game time with Hearts, more homegrown strikers now than they have had for some time.

But Graham believes he knows why this country struggled for so long to produce the same calibre of centre-forwards which they did in the past and how they can rear more Kevin Gallachers, Joe Jordans, Denis Laws, Ally McCoists and Kenny Millers in the future.  

“Kids don't play in the street anymore,” he said. “When I was young, I was out playing football constantly in my scheme. If I wasn’t playing a full-size game on a red ash pitch I was kicking a ball against two garage doors, working on my touch, working on my finishing, just fine-tuning my skills.

“Nowadays kids are all in academies. Their coaches want to play with false nines, want strikers to drop back into spaces, want everyone to listen to all of their new terminologies. It is a load of nonsense. They're turning these kids into robots. Football is becoming really, really boring to watch. It drives me insane.

“I was at a Celtic fan event last year which Martin O'Neill was speaking at. Somebody asked him about xG. Martin shot him down straight away. He said, ‘Sorry, but xG is not a thing. It's either a goal or it’s not a goal’. I just sat there smiling. I thought, ‘Thank goodness somebody’s actually normal!’. 

“Just let kids go out and play, let them go out and express themselves, let them make mistakes. I think we need to get back to that. Once they get to a certain age then, yeah, by all means start to coach them. Get them to work on their body position, first touch, finishing, whatever.

Brian Graham of Ross County (Image: Pete Summers / Shutterstock)

“I see a lot of kids going to one-on-one sessions with specialist coaches now. Go and get a ball and kick it off a wall! Go and play outside at the park with your mates! Go out and have fun! Your parents don't need to pay a guy to watch you shoot into an empty net.

“There is no point in a coach saying to a kid who is 12, 13 or 14 that he should be doing this or should be doing that. There is no point in a boy worrying if his touch was good enough at that age. The serious stuff will come later in life. Go and have fun.”

The boy from Barmulloch in Glasgow was depressed but by no means surprised during County’s mauling of the Hearts B team when he saw how the capital club’s youngsters were attempting to play.

“Their best players were away on international duty and they had a player sent off in the first half,” he said. “But their goalkeeper kept trying to pass the ball out from the back. I said to him, ‘Wee man! Please just kick it long! We're taking the ball off you every time and scoring!’. That is academy football. It really annoyed me. I felt so sorry for them.”

Barney Stewart took an unconventional route into the professional game – he played for Heriot-Watt University before signing for Falkirk – but Graham is confident his old strike partner will justify the £1.3m transfer fee that West Bromwich Albion paid for him back in June and go from strength to strength with club and country.

“Barney's work rate is absolutely incredible, he's extremely quick and he’s very strong,” he said. “He had a real purple patch for us last season and got his move. I was delighted for the kid. He's a lovely, lovely boy.

“I was at the Scottish Football Writers' Association dinner with some of the Falkirk guys and his mum and dad were at the table to see him get the Young Player of the Year award. His mum thanked me for helping him which was really nice of her.

“I saw he got his first goal for West Brom at the weekend. He's perfect for the Championship because of how fit he is, how quick he is and how strong he is. He’s playing with better players and is only going to get better.”

Graham also left Falkirk this summer when his contract expired but he has, even though he has to live apart from his wife Nicola, daughter Sofia and son Daniel during the week, no regrets whatsoever about swapping the Premiership for League One and joining Ross County for a third time.

There are, as he is at pains to point out, another 26 games still to go, but this could prove to be the goalscoring season of his life.

Brian Graham, left, with Barney Stewart at Falkirk last season (Image: Russell Cheyne / Shutterstock)

“I loved working with John McGlynn last season,” he said. “John's an absolutely fantastic person. He actually messaged me on Saturday night to congratulate me on my two goals against Queens. That is the kind of guy he is.

“But I was realistic. I knew at my age I couldn't play week in week out at that level. But I also knew I could still do it in the Championship, in League One, in League Two. I was willing to go down to League One because it was Ross County.

“Being away from home can be tough. But it is just life I suppose. My dad was an electrician and he had to do it sometimes. I love football and I am loving going in to my work every day just now.

"In my first season here at County we won the League Cup. In my second spell we won the Championship and the Challenge Cup with Stuart. So it's always been a successful football club for me. Fingers crossed it can be a third time."