"The most natural goalscorer to emerge from Everton's ranks for years,” was the verdict in the Everton programme back in February 1996.
So it was little surprise that Michael Branch was seen as Everton’s answer to Robbie Fowler. Comparisons to Michael Owen had also been made.
Branch was 'hailed as the player Evertonians had been waiting for', to quote James Corbett's book, The Everton Encyclopaedia. He made his debut aged just 17, in a team that featured Neville Southall, Dave Watson and Andrei Kanchelskis.
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Boyhood Evertonian Branch, who turns 44 today, replaced Tony Grant against Manchester United at Old Trafford in February 1996. He was a teenager who appeared, at that time, to have the keys to the football universe.
But when you are playing in the top-flight at such a young age, pressure soon follows, something that Branch, speaking to the Everton Magazine back in 2016, clearly didn’t appreciate.
“I’d been referred to as the city’s next Robbie Fowler and when I’d see him scoring every week I’d think 'oh no, I can’t live up to that,' so looking back now I was under a lot of pressure,” he recalled.
“I didn’t handle it the best but back then there was nobody to speak to whereas now the support is in place.”
“I was sitting on the bench next to Anders Limpar and with about twenty minutes to go Joe Royle turned to Anders and said ‘shall we throw the kid on and give him a go?’" he recalled in the same interview about his debut.
"Joe was always brilliant with me and he was my best manager by a mile. I only went on loan to Manchester City later on because Joe was there.”
"He had everything at his feet," Andy Hinchcliffe, a member of Everton's defence on the day Branch made his debut, told the Guardian back in 2012.
That run-out against United came less than a year after he had discarded his St Margaret’s school uniform and, for a lifelong Evertonian, it was the archetypal dream come true.
“I went to the FA Cup semi-final at Elland Road against Tottenham with my dad’s mates in a tranny van and I ran on the pitch at the end of the game!” he recalled.
“Then by the time the summer came around I was in the squad, training with those same players. It was very weird.
“I was too young to drive then and Daniel Amokachi didn’t live too far away so I decided to knock on his door and ask him for a lift. His cleaner answered and didn’t have a clue who I was. 'I play for Everton with Daniel' I said.”
Branch scored his first senior goal the next December in a 2-2 draw away to Chelsea. “Big Dunc knocked the ball down inside the box and I got on the end of it,” he said on the strike.
“What I remember most about that day though is that my shirt was massive on me. I don’t know who it was meant for but it was too big for me! I couldn’t go out and celebrate that night though because Frank Leboeuf smashed me and I spent the night on crutches.”
As with every player who had the fortune to play for Howard Kendall, Branch, speaking in 2016, told how the great man got his dad into trouble following a meal out to celebrate a new contract.
“I remember Howard came to pick the family up when I signed a new contract," he said. "He took me, my mum and my dad for a meal in Lark Lane. After the food he sorted a taxi for me and my mum and kept my dad out. That didn’t end well!”
After 45 appearances and three goals, Branch’s time at Everton ended in 2000. Spells at Manchester City, Birmingham City, Wolves, Reading and Hull among others followed.
And following a spell with Chester City, in which he was managed by Liverpool great Ian Rush, Branch decided to call time on his playing career just six years after his Everton departure.
“Yes, I played under Ian Rush,” he said. “I was injured one time and the lads were telling me that Rushy had joined in training and was on fire, banging goals in left, right and centre.
"He came into the physio’s room and said 'Branchy, you should have seen me there son. The goals were flying in…it was just like playing against Everton!'
“I enjoyed it but if I’m being honest, my heart wasn't in it. Then one day I’d just had enough and I rang Chester to say I wouldn’t be coming in any more.”
After two years in Australia, Aigburth-born Branch returned home and that was when his problems began.
“You’ve spent your life being told what to do, when to eat, when to train, when to play and then all of a sudden you can do what you want and that’s when some ex-players take a wrong route,” he said.
It was July 2012 when Branch’s world truly caved in and he was made to pay for 'the biggest mistake of his life' and one that would be played out in public. At a court case at Chester Crown Court, the judge heard that when officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) raided Branch's house they found a kilogram of high-purity cocaine, with a street value of around £50,000. A surveillance operation four months earlier had already seen him hand over three kilos of amphetamine to another man in a Liverpool car park.
The court also heard, in an effort to pay off his debts, Branch agreed to deliver amphetamines to a man in a pub car park. The drugs were later intercepted by the police and Branch said that as a result he was threatened into storing a block of cocaine worth £160,000 at his house. He was found guilty of possession with intent to supply drugs and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
“I made a very big mistake and I paid the price,” he said on his conviction. “I went straight from school to earning very good money.
“It was before the really massive money boom but it was still very good compared to my mates. When that ends it is hard to adjust. Very hard. I’m not a bad person, I made a mistake.
“I was ashamed of myself and I was really worried what people would think of me – Joe Royle, Howard Kendall and people like that, but…”
While in a separate interview with The Times in November 2019, Branch admitted his journey to HM Prison Altcourse in Fazackerley from court led to him having a real moment of reflection of where it all went wrong.
“I know it is not right but unless someone is in that situation with a young family, you don’t know what you are capable of doing," he said.
“That’s the honest truth. On the day I was sentenced the prison van took a different route to normal. It stopped by the traffic lights outside the club shop.
“The side of the stand at Goodison was all lit up. Through the window of the van, I was looking up, thinking, 'Where did it all go wrong?' I was so gutted.
“Prison is the hardest thing in the world without a doubt. Scary. At first I am being asked, 'Do I want to go on the numbers?' [a section of the prison for those at risk of attack].
“I don’t even know what ‘the numbers’ is. It is like with all the vulnerable people and I’m thinking, 'Why am I going to be vulnerable?'”
Branch only ended up serving three years of his sentence, and he was released from prison in 2016 - but he recently revealed how he tried to conceal his identity in jail after a prison guard recognised him from their Everton days.
Speaking to The Tenth Pint Podcast, Branch gave a small insight into life behind bars, revealing: "So I've come out [of the cell] looked down, and one of the guards used to be at Everton with me; he was a year younger than me. I was like 'thank god for that I know someone'.
"My name that I'm christened with is Paul Michael Branch so everything legal is Paul, and I'm down as Paul. So he's come up to me and said 'Paul, you don't half look like your Michael' because he thinks I'm Paul. So I'm trying to stay under the radar: I don't want anyone to know.
"And he's like how's your Michael doing so I said 'oh yeah he's in Australia'... then he's come back later on, after lunch, and said 'I've googled Paul Michael he doesn't have a brother, what's gone on Michael?'"
Upon his release, Branch knew he couldn’t return to his old ways and an interest in numbers, alongside the support of the PFA and Everton in the Community, allowed him to train as an accountant.
“I had always had an interest in numbers and when I told the PFA that I wanted to train as an accountant they were great with me and got me on a course," he said.
"The PFA were different class and would come to see me to check on how I was getting on. Everton in the Community, particularly Henry Mooney, and the Everton Former Players’ Foundation have also been a big help.
“'What can I do so that when I get out I don’t end up in that situation, I studied,” he told The Times back in 2019. “While lads were on PlayStations, I studied. I got no trouble for it.
"If anything I got more respect off them. I remember doing my coursework and prison guards coming in and saying what are you doing that for, as if you are ever going to be an accountant. I was just like, 'OK, we will see.'
“I also had counselling while I was away and loved it. I started reading counselling books and the counsellor said I should try it. I spoke to the PFA and did a course when I came out and it went from there. I just felt as though I hadn’t gone through everything to throw it away and not use it. Even coming out I have struggled massively with personal stuff, and financial stuff, but I would never go back into that now.”
Branch is now qualified to Association of Accounting Technicians level in accountancy, and although his career didn’t take the path many imagined it would, his story is both powerful and poignant, and shows that sometimes good really can come from bad, even in the most desperate of situations.
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