I smashed my car at 95mph and thought I was going to die.. I still can’t believe I survived
Scots star McGill admits he’s lucky to be alive
SNOOKER star Anthony McGill has revealed he almost died in a car crash.
The 30-year-old Scot was driving home from a major event when he hit a puddle at almost 100 miles an hour on the M6.
McGill wrote off his £24,000 Volkswagen Golf and has been left traumatised at the prospect of driving in poor weather ever since. Fortunately, he escaped with just some minor scratches on his hand – but it could have been much worse.
He said: “I was in a car crash and I should have died actually. I lost to Mark Selby and I drove home that night. I smashed my car at 95 miles an hour on the motorway.
“I hit a puddle on the motorway and just veered off. It all happened so quickly. Ever since then I’ve just been s***ting myself driving, especially in bad weather.
“I thought I was going to die,
I held on to the wheel and thought that was it. If I show you a picture of the car you can’t actually believe how I came out alive never mind just a few scratches.
“It was a Golf, It was a total write-off, I should have been a write-off as well. I came out with just a few scratches on my hand, but I’m still scared driving now.”
McGill will today fight it out for a place in the UK Championship semi-finals tomorrow against Stephen Maguire’s conqueror Luca Brecel who thumped veteran Anthony Hamilton 6-1.
The Scot’s progress in York has secured a spot at next month’s coveted 16-man Masters.
McGill passed up the chance to be a second reserve at the illustrious invitational event last season – and would have snuck in after Judd Trump and Jack Lisowski were booted out due to catching Covid-19.
But McGill said: “The Masters came around last year and it was only a month after my crash so I thought ‘I’m not driving down in that’. It was such bad weather and I thought ‘I’m not travelling in the hope of getting a game’.
“I still needed two people to pull out and I’m still scared driving now so I don’t regret it at all.”
It’s understandably been a life-changing experience for the player.
And McGill, who is chasing a maiden Triple Crown title this week, added: “I can drive in good weather but when it’s bad I’m still worried about it. When it was raining I used to just drive like it was sunny. I was pretty careless. If it’s raining I’m much more careful now.
“This should be a three-hour drive for me but because it was bad weather it took me six hours because I was going so slow.
“Immediately after that I couldn’t drive in bad weather, now I drive extremely slow.”
Lisowski is into the quarters after 6-4 win over Hossein Vafaei.