I’LL PLAY GAME MY WAY, SAYS McGINN
McGinn vows to emerge from mentor Brown’s shadow and carve out own identity for Scotland
AFTER years of trying to extricate himself from the shadow of Scott Brown, John McGinn finally feels ready to walk in his shoes. As a midfielder with St Mirren and Hibernian, he spent most of his early career battling to do his own thing. Trying in vain to shrug off the incessant comparisons with Celtic’s captain.
They could have been Parkhead team-mates before he joined Aston Villa last summer. For a time, they were squad mates with Scotland.
Yet Brown’s retirement from international football last February left an empty jersey in the engine room. And, after three goals in his last two games for Villa, McGinn feels ready to fill it.
‘We have a lot of top-quality midfielders when you glance at the squad list,’ said McGinn, who will be competing with the likes of Scott McTominay, Stuart Armstrong and Callum McGregor for a starting place in Kazakhstan.
‘We are very lucky in that sense. We have a lot of players who are playing at a really good level and I think every player individually is different. I think it’s hard to replace what Scott Brown brought us. He was one of a kind and there aren’t many players like him.
‘But, for me, the more you try and replicate him the more difficult it becomes. Everyone just needs to be their own man.
‘Look at Scott McTominay and the way he played the holding role for Man United against PSG in Paris. He didn’t go about it the way Broony would have.
‘But he did it in his own way and I think it’s an example for myself and others that you just need to play your own game.
‘The manager (Alex McLeish) is lucky in that he has a few players to try and fill the void Scott has left.’
McGinn’s hard-tackling, high-energy, ball-winning drive made comparisons with Brown inevitable.
At Aston Villa, the grandson of former Celtic chairman Jack has been encouraged to cross the halfway line more often.
In that respect, he was always a more likely replacement for Armstrong at Celtic than Brown. Admitting he was flattered rather than irked by the comparisons, McGinn says he always looked up to the Parkhead skipper.
‘I know I have been compared with Scott, I’ve been aware of that,’ he continued. ‘He’s a player I’ve looked up to massively.
‘When I first went into the Scotland squad, he took me under his wing.
‘Being at Hibs at the time, he knew exactly the position I was in, and how daunting it was for me initially stepping up to the national side.
‘For someone like that to be so good to me was amazing. He was asked about comparisons between us and he gave the same answer as me, saying we were both very different.
‘Scotty used to say I was a bit more attack-minded but I’ve noticed he’s managed to get a few goals recently.
‘But while the comparison was always there, we always felt we were slightly different.
‘I just think that if I could achieve half as much as he’s achieved in his career then I’ll be delighted.’
Confronted by a younger, quicker version of himself, Brown might easily have given McGinn the cold shoulder. Or regarded him as a threat to his place.
However, with his own status in the national team Hall of Fame secure after earning 55 caps, he chose to help him.
‘That’s why he’s been so successful,’ continued McGinn. ‘Broony has an influence on the dressing room and always tries to help everyone out to further their career.
‘He’s doing that at the minute at Celtic with Oli Burke. You could see when he signed he needed someone like Broony to take him under his wing to get the best out of him.
‘But he seems to have done that with a lot of players down the years at Celtic.
‘And it was the same with me at Scotland as I had that experience myself. It’s full credit to him that he was confident enough in his own ability and didn’t see anyone as a threat.’
No one would argue Brown is a modern-day Mother Teresa. Yet tales of an older dressing-room leader trying to assimilate overawed younger players into a more experienced squad paint a different picture of the usual stereotype.
‘He just told me to keep doing what I was doing at Hibs because that was the reason I was in the squad and why the manager wanted me there,’ McGinn recalled.
‘That was massive for me and helped me settle in. It made me feel more at home because, initially, it was daunting being there.
‘But the more you get to know these people you realise they’re just normal guys who want to do their best for their club and their country.
‘He just wanted to help the team and the squad going forward. He’s sorely missed but we have plenty of players who can fill that void in a different way.’
At 24, McGinn is now a mainstay of an Aston Villa team pushing for promotion to the richest football league on the planet. Yet he remains grounded and down to earth, the same guy he always was.
‘If you try too hard to fit in, you become something you’re not,’ said McGinn. ‘That’s when you start getting bitten on the backside.
‘Even now, I just try to be the same as I was at St Mirren and Hibs. I’ll never change.
‘For me, everyone who is successful — and I look at the likes of Darren Fletcher and Scott Brown as examples from the Scotland squads — they’re just normal people.
‘They’re humble and just work away to try and become the best they can become. That’s the path I’ve tried to follow and learn from.
‘I have a very supportive family. My brothers Stephen and Paul have obviously been a long time in the game as well, so if I ever showed signs of that, they would be the first ones on the phone to get my feet back on the ground. But I’ve had no reason to change.
‘I’ve not shown any signs of it, but if that was the case they would be on the case. There would be 15 or 20 others, even boys I’ve played with before, to remind me who I am and I’ll never forget that.’
The more you try to replicate Scott the harder it will become