There were 85 minutes on the clock and Aston Villa were already four goals to the good on Sunday when the home crowd burst into another huge cheer. The reason? The sight of John McGinn hotfooting it from one side of the pitch to the other carrying a St John Ambulance medical bag belonging to a paramedic busy treating Philippe Coutinho. A moment that chimed with his character but also his hunger: Villa smelt a fifth. Super John McGinn, indeed, as the terrace chant goes.
McGinn is guaranteed another rousing reception on Wednesday when the Villa captain returns to Hibernian for the first time as a player, in the first leg of a Europa Conference League play-off. McGinn made his name at Easter Road, helping Hibs to secure their first Scottish Cup in 114 years, but has burnished his reputation since a £2.7m switch to Villa five years ago. McGinn was walking around Edinburgh fringe when the life-changing call came. “Now he would cost more than before,” Unai Emery says, wearing a broad smile.
Six days before McGinn signed for Villa he scored for Hibs at Asteras Tripolis, his goal in Greece ensuring progress in Europa League qualifying. “It would have been easy for him to excuse himself from playing or take it easy in the games, but he was magnificent,” says the former Hibs manager Neil Lennon. “It just typified him. Even though he had this big move on the horizon, he was still giving his all. When he did leave, he left a huge hole. We were not as potent without John.”
Emery made the point that against Everton, when McGinn opened the scoring, the 28-year-old was the same dynamic presence in the first minute as he was in the last. After his goal came his now-trademark Zorro celebration, copied from his nephew who dreamed up the celebration in Clydebank, where McGinn grew up.
Almost two hours after full time at Villa Park, McGinn – whose “Meatball” moniker was born at St Mirren, owing to his buzzcut – was posing for photos and signing autographs in the players’ car park. “I’m not an oil painting,” McGinn said last year, poking fun at his appearance. “He is funny,” Lennon says. “He apparently does a very good impression of me. I’ve not heard it but I’m going to have to pull him up on it the next time I see him.”
They are snapshots that encapsulate McGinn’s endearing down‑to‑earth nature. His grandfather, Jack, was a former Celtic chairman and Scottish Football Association president. His elder brothers, Stephen and Paul, have played for Hibs since he departed.
McGinn grew up idolising Henrik Larsson as a Celtic fan but picked Villa over the team he supported as a boy. His goal at Wembley in the 2019 Championship play-off final earned Villa promotion in his first season.
His former Hibs teammate Liam Fontaine says: “He could have gone down the easy route of signing for Celtic and probably had a good career winning multiple trophies, but I really admire players that have the guts to go and test themselves.”
A self-deprecating character, McGinn has an infectious personality. His aggression, strength and power are among his best attributes, but it would be wrong to dumb him down to a workhorse. Lennon references McGinn’s ability to eliminate opponents with a drop of the shoulder or change of pace, citing his goal in a victory against Rangers at Ibrox in February 2018. His double at Celtic Park a few months earlier also sticks in the memory.
“He loved the challenge against Scott Brown and Callum McGregor and he wanted to show he could live in that company,” Lennon says. “I still think there is a lot more to come from John.”
McGinn’s passing palette is another recurring theme in conversations. “He is anything but a safe player,” says Fontaine. “If there is something on and some people might see it as a risk pass, John is not afraid to take those passes on.”
The thing that usually crops up when talking McGinn is his unorthodox gait – and his buttocks. “I always say if I didn’t have my backside, I’d be at Yeovil,” McGinn said last year.
It was a talking point at Hibs training. “Gym work wasn’t really his thing but he said: ‘Once I get my big arse in there, no one is getting past me anyway,’” Fontaine says, laughing.
“He is very good at using his body and that is missing out of a lot of players’ games these days. You watch him and think: ‘How’s he going to get out of this one?’
“People would’ve questioned how he would get on in the Premier League but watching him and seeing his progress, maybe the Premier League wasn’t ready for a player like him?”
Wednesday marks Villa’s first foray into a European competition for 13 years and McGinn has warned his teammates not to underestimate Lee Johnson’s Hibernian, despite the fact they have lost both games so far in the Scottish Premiership this season.
“Nothing seems to faze John: the bigger the game the better he is,” Lennon says. “He’s got a great mentality. He likes the big games, no question: he likes the challenge. He has an inner drive, he comes across like a laid-back, warm guy but on the pitch he is an absolute demon, a real winner. He’s a big‑game player for club and country.”
Going back to Easter Road promises to be a special occasion for the McGinn family, though John says once the whistle goes he hopes the home fans will be “cussing and swearing at me and treating me like a normal opponent”.
Lewis Stevenson and Paul Hanlon, his former Hibs teammates, will be enemies for the night. Another former teammate, David Gray, is now the Hibs first-team coach.
“Even before the first game of the last round [when Hibs overcame Luzern] the fans were saying: ‘If we get through, it is the return of McGinn,’” says Fontaine, who these days plays for third-tier Edinburgh City. “The Hibs fans absolutely loved John as a player but they knew the value of his character too. It will be a great occasion for both teams in front of a sellout crowd.”
