Dundee’s Paul McGinn admits he couldn’t believe it when he heard his younger brother John had been “speared” in the thigh during a freak training ground incident.
The accident happened last month when St Mirren captain Steven Thompson injured McGinn Junior with a spiked pole in a prank which went horribly wrong.
Paul picked his sibling up afterwards and he was shocked by what had happened but he admitted any sympathy he had for John is starting to wear thin, especially as they still live under the same roof.
He said: “John is OK. He is fine and walking all right now. He will soon recover from it.
“After it happened I had to go and pick him up from the ground and it beggared belief.
“However, it was just a freak accident as Thommo has always been good with him.
“I was going to say John just had to take it on the chin but he actually had to take it in the leg!
“He has been getting it from all angles. He turned up to one of our games and he was even getting grief for his clothes on Twitter.
“So we’ve been trying to lay off him a bit.
“But he has been in the house a bit more than usual which is annoying!”
Paul’s older brother Stephen also plays for Dundee and with John out of contract at St Mirren at the end of the season, Paul admits he would be delighted if there was a trio of McGinns at Dens.
He said: “You never know.
“Of course I would like to see him here as John’s a good player.
“You forget he is only 20 but he has played so many games already.
“He has won the League Cup. You forget that with the season they have had but he is one of their top players.”
While Paul would be delighted if his younger brother was at Dens next season, it is this campaign that is occupying his attention at the moment with the Dark Blues having lost their last five games, albeit two of them were against Champions Celtic.
He admitted he is struggling to pinpoint the reasons for the slump but he is hoping the losing streak will end against Aberdeen this afternoon.
He said: “We are on a bad run but I thought we were much improved last week against Inverness.
“The Celtic game at Parkhead took a lot out of us. We got a bit of a doing and you could maybe say we took a drop in confidence.
“But I thought we reacted well last week and created a lot of chances against a good Inverness team.
“So it is difficult to put your finger on it.
“I suppose coming up from the division below you are going to have dips eventually, especially in your first season.
“We are just lucky it has happened after the split and not before it.
“We have two opportunities to try to make amends.
“We have caused Aberdeen problems this season and have scored goals against them.
“They were previously on a good run defensively and we put paid to that.
“So we can score against them but it is also about keeping them quiet because they know how to put the ball into the net as well.”