Aston Villa captain John McGinn has revealed he was just one millimetre away from dying after being impaled by a training pole at St Mirren.
The 31-year-old midfielder, who lifted the Scottish Cup with Hibernian and has won 89 caps for Scotland, said the freak accident occurred in April 2015 while he was a teenager coming through the ranks at the Paisley club.
Recalling the incident on The Overlap podcast, McGinn explained that his then team-mate Steven Thompson accidentally stabbed him in the leg during a squad training drill.
"It wasn’t portrayed correctly. It was a possession drill," McGinn said. "Gary Teale was the manager at the time and Thommo was a big character in the dressing room. A great mate of mine, really good (guy)."
McGinn detailed how the session unfolded as players ran through training gates to score points.
"We’re doing this drill, you run through the gates for a point," McGinn said. "He’s charging towards me, the training pole’s kind of bounced up at him, hit him on the chin, so he can’t see me. And I’ve Cruyff turned back for another point."
"He was a big joker and he’s went to chuck it in the ground to give everyone a laugh," McGinn added. "But he’s not seen me come back. So, I got a big fright."
Training injury and hospital scan
The pole penetrated 7.7 centimetres into McGinn's leg, striking the bone before coming back out.
"It was in my leg, 7.7 centimetres in. It hit the bone and came back out," McGinn said. "I didn’t know that at the time. It wasn’t that sore to be honest, I just got a fright."
St Mirren did not have a full-time doctor at the time, but the club's doctor happened to be present and cleared out the wound before sending McGinn for a hospital scan.
The scan revealed that the pole had missed McGinn's femoral artery by a single millimetre, prompting a stark warning from the medical staff.
"The surgeon sat back in his seat and he went, 'If it hit that, you were dead, basically. You would have bled out in minutes,'" McGinn recalled.
"Just because of where it was and the blood I’d have lost. So, it was a bit of a fright but I lived to fight another day," McGinn said. "Everything happens for a reason and then I ended up going to Hibs."
McGinn confirmed that he bore no ill feeling towards Thompson over the accident and later joked about it when Thompson retired from football.
"Thommo was white as a ghost," McGinn said. "But I wasn’t angry at him because it was just a freak accident. When I turned up to his retirement, I took a training pole!"
Failed Celtic move and Hibernian departure
McGinn also spoke about his proposed transfer to Celtic in 2018, revealing that he had expected to complete a move to the Glasgow club from Edinburgh side Hibernian.
Then Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers was keen to sign McGinn, but Celtic failed to submit a formal bid, allowing English club Aston Villa to secure his signature for less than £3million.
McGinn's grandfather, Jack McGinn, had served as Celtic chairman in the 1990s, and the midfielder believes his family association caused Celtic to assume the deal was guaranteed.
"I think the irony is if he (Jack McGinn) wasn’t my grandpa and I wasn’t a Celtic fan, I probably would be a Celtic player," McGinn said. "I think they felt because I was a Celtic fan, it would just happen, nobody else would come in and Hibs would crumble."
Hibernian refused to lower their valuation for the player. McGinn pledged to wait for Celtic to meet the asking price, but an agreement was never reached.
"Hibs were amazing at the time," McGinn said. "They said, 'we’re not going to stand in your way, we know you want to be a Celtic player, but they need to pay us what you’re worth'. So I gave them my word that, 'alright, that’s fine, you won’t stand in my way, but I’ll wait until they pay what I’m worth', and it never ever got there."
McGinn suggested Celtic had taken a similar approach with other targets and dismissed warnings from his representative about competing interest from Villa Park.
"They’ve done that with quite a few players," McGinn said. "I think if I wasn’t Scottish, if I wasn’t a Celtic fan, if they thought a team would come in, they probably would have just done it."
"But I don’t think they believed my agent at the time when he said, if Villa get a takeover, they’re coming in. I think they thought it was a bluff for more money or something like that," he added.
"I couldn’t quite understand because I was chomping at the bit to come and compete there."
Aston Villa arrival and career success
Aston Villa were playing in the Championship when they signed McGinn in 2018. He has since spearheaded a revival that has seen the club win the Europa League and qualify for the Champions League in two of the last three seasons.
McGinn recalled receiving a direct telephone call from former Villa manager Steve Bruce urging him to travel to Birmingham after a fee was agreed with Hibernian.
"Steve Bruce called and said, 'get on a flight, we’ve agreed a fee'. They pushed the boat out, made an effort," McGinn said.
Villa executives opened Villa Park late at night to welcome McGinn and his family, offering him an executive box and the club's number seven shirt.
"It was as if I felt like they really wanted me," McGinn said. "They opened Villa Park at night, they said, they know I’ve got a big family, they said, here’s box number seven, No 7 jersey, you’re the man we want and that was it."
