John McGinn has revealed that he was only a millimetre from death as a result of the infamous accident involving a training ground pole when he was coming through the ranks at St Mirren.

The midfielder, who is now captain of Aston Villa, lifted the Scottish Cup with Hibs and has won 89 Scotland caps. 

But the 31-year-old has never forgotten how close he came to losing his life while a teenager with the Paisley club when then team-mate Steven Thompson managed to stab him in the leg as they went through their paces one day in April, 2015.

Recalling the story on The Overlap podcast, McGinn said: ‘It wasn’t portrayed correctly. It was a possession drill. 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).

‘We’re doing this drill, you run through the gates for a point. 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. But he’s not seen me come back. So, I got a big fright.’

John McGinn recalled the infamous training incident at St Mirren on The Overlap podcast

Recalling how he discovered just how perilous the flashpoint could have been, McGinn added: ‘It was in my leg, 7.7 centimetres in. It hit the bone and came back out.

‘I didn’t know that at the time. It wasn’t that sore to be honest, I just got a fright.

‘St Mirren at the time didn’t have a full-time doctor, but the doctor at the time was in, luckily. So, he cleared it all out and says, “you need to go for a scan”.

‘But once I got the scan, it was actually a millimetre from the femoral artery. 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”.

‘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.

‘Everything happens for a reason and then I ended up going to Hibs.’

McGinn is adamant that he bears no grudges towards Thompson.

Former St Mirren team-mate Steven Thompson was involved when high jinks got out of hand

‘Thommo was white as a ghost,’ he recalled. ‘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!’

McGinn also revealed that he was expecting to join Celtic in 2018 but the move did not materialise because the Glasgow club dragged their heels.

Brendan Rodgers wanted to take McGinn to Celtic Park from Hibs, but a bid never came and McGinn ended up joining Villa for less than £3million.

McGinn’s grandfather Jack was Celtic chairman in the 1990s and the 31-year-old believes his association with the club meant they thought his transfer would be a formality.

‘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,’ he said.

‘I think they felt because I was a Celtic fan, it would just happen, nobody else would come in and Hibs would crumble.

‘But Hibs were amazing at the time. 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 has forged an incredible career for club and country, including scoring at a World Cup

‘They’ve done that with quite a few players. 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.

‘I couldn’t quite understand (why it didn’t happen) because I was chomping at the bit to come and compete there.’

Villa were in the Championship when they signed McGinn, but he has spearheaded a revival that has seen them win the Europa League and qualify for the Champions League in two of the last three years.

‘Steve Bruce called and said, ‘get on a flight, we’ve agreed a fee’. They pushed the boat out, made an effort,’ he said.

‘It was as if I felt like they really wanted me. 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.’