Town’s U18s travel to the Weston Homes Community Stadium for Thursday’s FA Youth Cup tie with a Colchester U18s team coached by former Blue Wayne Brown standing between them and a fourth round game away against Sunderland.
Centre-half Brown, who came through the Town youth system in the 1990s and went on to play for the U’s, Hull and Leicester amongst others, hopes his players will learn from the experience of facing against his old club, having defeated Cheltenham in the second round.
"It’s a big test for the lads,” Brown told TWTD. "Obviously it’s at home which is great for the lads, a bit of exposure, hopefully we will get a few through the gates to cheer them on, which is something that they can experience that they don’t experience every Saturday.
"It’s all a part of their development, of course it’s a bigger occasion for the lads being the FA Youth Cup, it only comes round once a year and it’s something they look forward to.
"They all look forward to a big glamour tie against a Liverpool or a Manchester United or Arsenal away but obviously this is great because it’s local, but for us it’s just another game and that’s what we are trying to drum into the lads, it’s just another game of football.”
The Youth Cup brings its own unique pressures with young players usually playing at their club’s main stadium for the first time.
"Obviously they don’t get the opportunity to play on the pitch at the stadium as much,” the 37-year-old added. "But how they handle that and how they handle the nerves, and the pressures that come with that, is all part of their development.
"If you are asking the lads to go and play U21s football then they have to go and play against Swansea away in their stadium and so on and so forth.
"It’s something that they have to go and embrace because if they go out there and they freeze then that tells us a lot about the individual - will he be able to do it U21s and ultimately in our first team?”
Brown works alongside plenty of familiar faces at Colchester. His former Town team-mates Fabian Wilnis and John McGreal are also amongst the academy coaches, while another ex-Blues centre-half, Tony Humes, is now the manager and his assistant Richard Hall was a young player and academy coach at Town.
The Barking-born defender came through the ranks at Ipswich, making his first team debut against Middlesbrough in the 1997/98 season, and he believes his Colchester players are probably closer to the first team than he was at a similar age at Portman Road.
He said: "Obviously Ipswich is a bigger club than Colchester. Was there as much opportunity back then as there is at this football club now? No.
"So you did have to be patient and play a lot of reserve games and bide your time, but on the other side of things it was a great environment to be in.
"I’m not saying that this isn’t, but back then they were in a higher league so you were learning from good personnel in the first team, like these lads are at this club, but at a higher level.
"You look at this club in League One, they haven’t got the financial resources to go out and get first team players, whereas Ipswich did have when I was a young player there, they brought a lot of people in. The pathway at this club at the minute is far quicker than it was at Ipswich at that time.”
Any particular players we ought to look out for in the Colchester line-up which faces the Blues?
"We are all in this together,” he said. "I’m not going to highlight any individuals because it would be wrong of me to do that.
"They are an honest bunch and a young bunch, albeit 10 first-year scholars, but to get that exposure and experience is fantastic at that early age.”
Brown, who made 38 starts and 14 sub appearances for the Blues, scoring one goal, is keen to impress upon his squad that the match should be treated as just another fixture.
"We’ll prepare just like any other game,” he continued. "We’ll set up and do our homework on them, just like we do with any opposition that we play and then we will go out and play to our strengths with our philosophy, and that’s how we’ll play the game.”
The winners of Thursday’s match will face a fourth round tie away against Sunderland - who coincidentally knocked the Blues out on penalties at the third round stage last season - the Black Cats having beaten Fleetwood 4-0 in a home game played at the Eppleton Colliery Welfare Ground last night.
Tickets for Thursday’s game, which kicks-off at 7pm, are available in advance from Colchester United or via cash turnstiles on the night: adults £7, concessions £5 (seniors, disabled, Forces), under-18s £5, under-14s £3, under-eights: £1 and carers free.