The following article first appeared in the relaunched Everton magazine - out now.
“I’m not a bad person, I made a mistake.”
Michael Branch went from sharing football pitches with Beckham, Zola, Shearer and Cantona to sharing a small prison cell with someone he’d never met before in his life.
It was a sharp fall from grace but the now 37 year-old was far from being the first ex-footballer to suffer dire consequences as a result of making some very wrong decisions and, despite the best efforts of the Professional Footballers Association, he sadly won’t be the last.