Heartening Uplift From ‘Hell On Earth’

Anyone remember Michael Branch being so exhausted at the end of a loan appearance for Wolves that he had to be helped off the pitch at Blackburn?

Well, with his peak athletic years surely far behind him, he is burning up the miles, more than 25 seasons on, like never before.

The 47-year-old former England under-21 international – brought to Molineux by Colin Lee in 1999 – is basking in the festive satisfaction of an extraordinary feat of endurance; one on which he ran increasingly demanding distances on 24 consecutive days of December.

And he already has his sights fixed on another severe test of his stamina – a first appearance in the Dubai Marathon.

“I have been into all this for a few years now and really stepped it up during lockdown,” he told us. “I didn’t like running when I was playing but that has all changed and I organise a local Sunday group which has 20-30 in it most weeks….a mix of Reds and Blues!

“My life is much better than it was and I’m loving it. My sister lives in Dubai and asked me if I wanted to join her on the run in two or three weeks.

“She has since dropped out after deciding she hadn’t done enough training but I am pushing on with it, although I haven’t done any warm weather training. I’ll be all right. I have to be…I’m doing it for charity!”

Merseyside-born Branch was hailed as a star in the making when emerging as a youngster at Everton. his debut coming at 17 as a half-time substitute at Manchester United and his first goal following on in a draw at Chelsea.

‘Special Branch’ was Gary Lineker’s overview and the boyhood Everton fan also netted against Leicester and West Ham before falling down the pecking order in the Walter Smith era.

“I played for the team I love,” he said in a feature in the match-day programme for Wolves’ visit to the Hill Dickinson Stadium last week. “When I was a kid, I dreamed of getting on at Goodison and scoring in front of the Gwladys Street end – and I did that.”

Wolves picked him up in November, 1999 a year after one of the Everton greats, Joe Royle, took him to Manchester City on loan.

And it was against City that he made an outstanding two-goal home debut under the Molineux lights, scoring twice in a Friday night game shown live on Sky.

His impact was sufficient for Wolves to push through a £500,000 permanent move, the former age-group international also coming up with goals against Norwich, Portsmouth, QPR and Nottingham Forest in what remained of that season.

He managed only four in a full 2000-01 campaign, though, and, perhaps surprisingly considering their Goodison connections, didn’t click with Lee’s successor.

“I really enjoyed my time there,” he added. “I was off and running (with goals on home debut), so the fans took to me straightaway.

“I had a manager (Lee) who believed in me. I was a confidence player, so if you’re shouting at me as a manager, you’re not going to get much. If you have a go at me, my head would go down.”

Branch formed friendships at Molineux, especially with Keith Andrews, who was chosen as his best man when he married close to his Sefton Park roots and is Godfather to one of his three kids. The two met up when Brentford played at Everton recently.

“I really enjoyed it for a spell but then Dave Jones came in and we didn’t see eye to eye,” he continued to programme columnist Dave Prentice. “When he came in, a fellow Scouser, I was made up. Then I got injured pre-season and I probably had a bit of an attitude, being young and thinking I knew it all.”

Branch was on holiday in Mexico when he read that Jones had signed Shaun Newton from Charlton. He sensed then that his Wolves days were numbered – and he dropped down the divisions as he started to fall out of love of the game.

Loans at Reading and Hull were followed by free-transfer moves to Bradford, Chester and Halifax but it was only in the switch to the club not far across the other side of the Mersey – one by now playing at the Deva Stadium rather than Sealand Road – that his career flickered back into proper life.

So how low did Paul Michael Branch sink? In November, 2012, he was sentenced at Chester Crown Court to seven years in prison for drugs offences. He served three of them and his mental health nosedived.

He is thankful not to have taken the final tragic step that some do and instead to have bounced back from his ‘hell on earth’ and to have been able to do something to help fellow sufferers.

He came up with his Running Through The Darkness initiative to support Liverpool-based James’ Place (www.jamesplace.org.uk) in boosting awareness of all the agencies that are in place to provide assistance – and he looked and sounded great when we bumped into each other at Everton’s new home.

He was preparing for some match-night corporate work, as was another friend of Wolves Heroes, Derek Mountfield, and works full-time in the Everton ticket office, having studied accountancy around a decade ago. He is appearing at the Mount Hotel in March alongside author and MC Jason Guy.

As if to confirm his love for the game is back, he has a season ticket next to his son and his fitness is not in question. His charity blockbuster confirms as much.

He ran one kilometre on December 1, two on the second and so on up to 24 on Christmas Eve, with every day’s running starting and finishing in the dark to align with the name of his initiative.

The highlight of his 300km ‘marathon’ – apart from finishing! – was ending his December 20 effort by running into the Hill Dickinson Stadium before kick-off of the Everton v Arsenal game. That’s what you call ‘turning your life around!’

Readers can support him by clicking on www.justgiving.com/page/run-through-the-darkness the blurb for which says much about his own journey.

“I’ve had my own ups and downs over the years,” he wrote. “Times where I’ve felt lost, struggled with motivation, or slipped into bad habits. Running has helped me get back on track and I want to turn that into something positive for someone else.”