McGinn is willing to miss a party again if it means more glory
THE last time John McGinn appeared in a League Cup Final he witnessed a town and a team awakening from a 26-year footballing slumber.
But Scotland Under-19 duties the following morning ensured the young midfielder missed the messy week-long aftermath that saw his St Mirren team-mate David van Zanten allegedly falling asleep and staying overnight in a local pub.
Such celebratory scenes were commonplace across Paisley as a town starved of major cup success since Saints’ 1987 Scottish Cup Final win over Dundee United let off a little steam.
On Sunday, McGinn will be a central figure for Hibs in the League Cup Final as the Easter Road side aim to win their first silverware since lifting the same trophy in 2007.
Should they pip Ross County to secure the club’s first cup success in nine long years, however, there will be no wild celebrations this year either for the 21-year-old and his team-mates.
Sunday’ s 1-1 draw with Inverness Caley Thistle in the Scottish Cup has put paid to that, via a quarter-final replay scheduled f or the Highlands 72 hours after the final whistle blows at Hampden.
Not that the Scotland Under-21 captain cares too much...
‘When we beat Hearts to win the League Cup Final with St Mirren, the whole atmosphere of the game blew me away,’ said McGinn.
‘But the reaction afterwards to the victory is something I will never ever forget; just how important it was to the town of Paisley. The open- top bus tour was unbelievable. It was an incredible experience for everyone involved.
‘It has made me hungry to go through again, so Sunday is a chance I don’t want to let pass me by. Hopefully, I’ll be on another open-top bus in Edinburgh.
‘Unfortunately, I missed out on the celebrations with St Mirren because I was due in Irvine the next day to meet up with the Scotland Under-19s.
‘I missed the week-long party and that was something no one will ever forget. David Van Zanten woke up in the pub and slept in it at night! But it just shows you how much it meant to everyone involved that the party lasted so long.
‘ It was such an unexpected victory for us as a club to win a national trophy for the first time in well over 20 years. But it was nice to be called up by my country, so I had no problem with that.
‘If we do manage to win on Sunday, we’ve now got the replay at Inverness on the Wednesday, so our celebrations would be a little more low key. In that case, we would just move on and try to reach another semi-final.’
McGinn was substituted with nine minutes to go in the 2013 Final, with St Mirren 3-1 up. Hearts pulled a goal back but in the four nerve-shredding minutes of added time that followed, they could not take the match into extra-time.
It still ranks as the longest 13 minutes of the midfielder’s career. But the tears of veteran team-mate Lee Mair — who had lost three previous finals and feared his chance to win a cup had gone — drove home how fortunate he was to achieve success so soon in his career.
‘I just remember the full-time whistle and sprinting on and being so relieved and delighted at the same time,’ smiled McGinn.
‘ It was a whole mixture of emotions. It was exhausting.
‘The older boys at St Mirren were quick to make me aware that these sort of days don’t come along too often. For Lee Mair, that was his first winners’ medal and I saw what it meant to him that day.
‘Everyone was telling me to take it all in, to remember it all — but I can’t remember that much about it, to be honest. But these are the games you want to play in and right now is a really exciting time to be a Hibs player.’
Despite the set-back of losing a late equaliser to Inverness on Sunday, Hibs remain unbeaten in five matches against Premiership opposition this season.
After damaging Championship defeats to Morton, Dumbarton and Queen of the South, McGinn believes Stubbs’ side have now emerged from the blip that has left their best chance of reaching the Premiership via the play-offs.
‘It was important to stop losing games,’ he said. ‘The last week has been a real shock to the system, especially the home defeat to Morton. The manager didn’t come in afterwards and tear the hair off us because he knew how hard we had worked to get to that point.
‘We still have a lot to win this season and, hopefully, we can go up through the play-offs. All good teams suffer blips. It’ s just unfortunate for us that Rangers have had such a good season. Now we need to battle for second with Falkirk, who are doing really well themselves.
‘We have some massive games coming up and Inverness on Sunday was another one of those. Unfortunately, we lost an equaliser late on but our performance on the whole was a good one and we still have a great chance of finishing the season really well.
‘It was just really important that we were still in the hat for the semi-final draw. We didn’t want to be in the hat along with Inverness, but we will go there after the League Cup Final and, hopefully, reach Hampden again.’