FIND someone who loves you the same way Stephen McGinn has grown to love the Scottish Championship. Since the start of 2017, he’s twice helped teams fend off relegation in the second tier and twice ended the season with a winner’s medal wrapped around his neck.
First it was St Mirren, one year wrestling back from the abyss and the next storming to the title. Then it was Greenock Morton and 390 minutes of gruelling, do-or-die play-off success. Now it’s Kilmarnock, coming in from the cold and taking their chance when part-time Arbroath finally gave them a sliver of hope.
For a man who’ll be 34 in December, the league has given him a new lease of life, one he hopes he will be able to take back into Scotland’s top flight.
“I came back from England to reinvigorate myself and the years since have been everything I wanted them to be,” McGinn, who returned to St Mirren for a second time in 2017 after a spell with Wycombe. “Now, when you get to this age, you don’t know how many more games like these you’ll get to play in, how many more chances you’ll get to play in the Premiership and you don’t want to let them get away from you.
“I’m out of contract in the summer, so we’ll have to see what happens next. But I’d love another crack at it and just being inside Rugby Park with a crowd like this and the reaction we got tells you what it could be like next season.
“I can’t thank the gaffer enough for how he’s been with me since he came in. He’s made me a big part of things, he’s treated me really well and I feel like I’ve backed that up on
the pitch.
“So it goes without saying that I’d love another crack at the Premiership under him, one more shot.”
You could forgive the McGinns if, by now, they greeted honours and plaudits with the same indifference as they do being told the pollen count is on the rise or there’s a council election next month. But that’s not how they do it and Stephen, the eldest of the footballing brothers, is savouring Killie’s Championship title as if it were his first.
“It’s brilliant to have another medal at 33, especially as this one feels so different – at St Mirren, I was the captain and had been there a long time,” he said. “It was my second spell with the club and everyone knew what the place meant to me.
“But it’s incredible the way we’ve done it here. When you dream of winning the title, it’s always with a last-minute goal, how good would that be. And when we did, this place was absolutely rocking, it was unbelievable to be part of.”
The good times aren’t stopping anytime soon for McGinn and this week he’ll be inducted into the St Mirren Hall of Fame. A firm fans favourite, his two spells at the club saw him make more than 200 appearances, culminating in that 2018 title.
“It’s been a pretty good week,” he said. “St Mirren were asking me when to announce it and my only thought was: ‘Don’t make it after Friday in case we’ve blown it!’
“So they put the news out early and thankfully everything turned out perfectly.
“Everyone knows how much St Mirren mean to me. All I ever wanted to do was work hard for the club, to give them everything.
“It’s really nice that they still feel something for me.”
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