St Mirren Football Club is thrilled to announce that Stephen McGinn has returned to the club as he joins the St Mirren Youth Academy on a full-time basis.
A St Mirren Hall-of-Fame inductee, Stephen will be taking up the role of U18s coach after his retirement from playing.
The former Saints captain announced his retirement last week following a career that saw him make over 200 appearances for the Buddies across two spells, winning the Scottish Championship in 2018 and securing our return to the top-flight. As well as his time in Paisley, Stephen turned out at the likes of Watford, Shrewsbury Town, Sheffield United, Wycombe Wanderers, Dundee, Hibernian, Kilmarnock and Falkirk.
The 35-year-old has been working with the U16s at the Academy on a part-time basis since November 2023 and will begin his new full-time role on Monday 24th June.
Speaking to stmirren.com, Stephen said: "I feel like it was the right time to stop playing and I'm thankful that the club offered me the job when it did.
"You don't want to wish away holidays, but I'm really looking forward to getting started next week.
"I joined the Academy in November but was still very respectful of my main job at the time being the Falkirk captain. When I got offered the job to come back in full-time and have it be my main job, I'm really excited about it.
"It's always been a path that I wanted to go into after I finished playing. I've been at St Mirren for a long time as a player and there's a brilliant academy here that will help me get better as a coach. As well as coaching players, the manger coaches coaches. There's an environment that can make me better but my primary job is to try and get players into this first team.
Seeing three academy graduates at the club involved with Scotland [at the Euros] gives a motivation to us as coaches and to the players that there's no ceiling here.
"I know what it takes to come out the academy and be a first team player. I've seen it first hand with teammates, myself and my brother. I'm here to earn my stripes and show the players and coaches that I deserve to be here."
Head of Academy, Allan McManus added: "We're absolutely delighted to get Stephen on board.
"Stephen has been with us for around seven months working with the under-16s whilst he was at Falkirk. He'll be working with the under-18s and have support from myself and Craig McLeish [Head of Youth Programme].
We have been working behind the scenes to try and get Stephen in on a permanent basis and we're delighted that has come to fruition.
"We know how Stephen is regarded at the football club. He's been excellent with us over the last few months at the academy and he knows exactly what the club is all about which is important. He's also walked the walked in relation to being a player so that experience is huge and can only add a great deal of value to our young players.
"It's a win-win for Stephen as well getting the chance to work with some of the best coaches around in the manager, Diarmuid O'Carroll and Brian Kerr. There's no better learning environment than that and we also want to help him as much as we can."
