McGeady set to write final chapter of glittering career
Veteran looking to life beyond football ahead of Hibs swansong
AIDEN McGEADY is literally and figuratively writing a new chapter in his career after returning to Scottish football with Hibernian following a 12-year hiatus. On the pitch, the 36-year-old will attempt to exhibit some of the trickery that landed him a record £9.5million move to Spartak Moscow from Celtic in 2010.
In his spare time, the placement of paragraphs and spelling mistakes are among his nemeses in his essay writing as he undertakes a masters degree in sports directorship, alongside obtaining his coaching qualifications.
He at least can call on his dad, an English teacher who actually taught club team-mate David Marshall as a kid, for help.
Despite having one eye on the future, McGeady’s winning mentality has not waned. ‘Obviously, it’s crossed my mind (life after football),’ said McGeady, who signed for Hibs on a 12-month deal last month following five years at Sunderland.
‘If nothing had happened for me in the summer, I might have had to retire or drop down the leagues.
‘It could be a while off but you never know in football.
‘I’ve done a bit of coaching, including some of my badges. I’m also doing a course just now for sports directorship, which I’m halfway through.
‘It’s a masters degree and really difficult. You have to do 3,000 word essays and I’ve not done one of them since I was at school.
‘I got my dad to help me with my essays but there were still about 1,000 spelling mistakes in it.
‘All he kept saying was, new paragraph, new paragraph, that was it.’
McGeady is likely to have made enough money from the game from spells at Celtic, Spartak, Moscow, Everton and recently Sunderland that he will not need to work once he decides to hang up his boots.
You get the impression, however, that he does not fancy the prospect of being idle.
‘The degree is tough but it’s good,’ he added. ‘It gives you a good insight and I’m doing it because if I finish playing and there’s an opportunity, I might fancy it.
‘I’m doing a bit more media stuff and will start doing more. I might love doing that. I’m trying to do a bit of everything to see if I want to stay in football or not.’
It remains to be seen whether time has been a healer for some of Scottish football’s unsparing football supporters.
During his time playing for Celtic, the Glasgow-born McGeady became the pantomime villain at away grounds after pledging his international allegiance to the Republic of Ireland — a country he would go on to represent 92 times, instead of Scotland.
It is a sensitive subject that McGeady recently spoke about during a BBC interview, however, he is reluctant to elaborate on the issue.
‘In a way I regret doing that interview because it drew attention to something that happened so long ago and blew it up again,’ said McGeady. ‘I suppose I don’t want to spend too much time speaking about that and that wasn’t on my mind at all, I didn’t even think about it.
‘I just want to play football and that was all I was concerned with. So the less said about that the
better. I don’t want to keep talking about it and giving it oxygen because then I’m said to be playing the victim or whatever. That’s what I hear and that’s what I see.’
After making the move abroad as a 24-year-old with seven major honours gleaned from a trophyladen spell at Celtic, McGeady is now looking on with interest at seeing Josh Doig — briefly a teammate at Hibs — and Lewis Ferguson, formerly of Aberdeen, make the move to Italy with Hellas Verona and Bologna respectively.
‘Just to enjoy it and be openminded,’ replied McGeady when asked if he had any advice for the pair. ‘I don’t think you can go abroad thinking: “This is so different from Scotland’ or “I miss my mum’s cooking or going for fish and chips”. You have to embrace the culture and embrace the different lifestyle and the physical changes in terms of the football being played.
‘It’s just a case of embracing it and almost becoming a local. Josh has gone to Verona so he has to almost become Italian and taking on board the things that they do well out there and implementing that into your lifestyle. It is about being open-minded and enjoying it, which I’m sure he will do.
‘It is a compliment to the Scottish game that players are being plucked from this league to go to Serie A, the Premier League, the French league or the Bundesliga.
‘It is a compliment to the Scottish league because you know that down south people still just think: “Oh, it’s just Scotland”.
‘That’s just what everyone thinks about it down there. But there are a lot of players who get taken from Scottish teams.’
McGeady, who is likely to feature in today’s Premier Sports Cup clash at Bonnyrigg Rose, recalls how getting used to life in Russia took him time.
‘There were loads of things that were so different... there were about a thousand,’ he said. ‘From day one, arriving there and then going to training the next day.
‘I was living in the city centre of Moscow and training was on the outskirts. It was about 20km in
a car and I had to be in training for half-nine, so they were saying they were leaving at 8 o’clock or earlier.
‘I couldn’t understand why they were leaving so early when it was just 20km but they told me that Moscow traffic was so unpredictable and we were in the car for nearly two hours.
‘Two hours to go 20km! That was an eye-opening experience on my very first morning and was totally different from Glasgow where you get in the car and you’re in the city centre in 15 minutes. There was loads of stuff, including stuff you probably shouldn’t speak about!’
For now, McGeady is planning to do his talking with his feet as he attempts to help Hibs improve on last season’s bitterly disappointing eighth-place Premiership finish.
Bonnyrigg R v Hibernian 3pm on Premier Sports