 Welcome to Toffy TV, I'm delighted to say I'm joined by ex-Everton striker, Michael Branch, who has just done a very, very lengthy interview with Baz over on our More Than a Game channel, so make sure you check that out. So say I'm playing and I've had a good game, I've scored, say I look up and it's 70 minutes, and I've scored, I'm having a good game, I'll be like, come on, take me off now, in case I make a bad touch up, I've missed a chance. That's my head, I want to go off now because I'm having a good game and I don't want to spoil it. So I was remandered for four months, so in that four months I want to show what my sentence is going to be, so I was still thinking I might get a year, I might even get a month out, I never got seven, I was like, what? So that knocked me for six, I thought I'm not doing seven years, I might as well just go and top myself or something. But I've got to be careful not to project too far in the future, I want this one then, just be happy with what you've got. Living the moment, living the day, and today's been a good day. I just want to have a chat with Michael about his new running club, Social Striders. Is it a running club? Would you call me back? A group. Yeah, a group. Yeah, not a club. So just tell me the background of why you wanted to start this. So obviously I run a lot now, I know the benefits for me mentally, and I just thought it would be a good idea to start a little, not a club, a running group, no pressure, all abilities, Sunday mornings, let's get up early, go for a little walk, a little run and a talk, so no great paces, there won't be no 5k records getting broken, there'll just be a jog with some meaningful conversation. What led you to think this was something that you wanted to get into and something that was needed? I know how beneficial it is to me to go running and talk. There's other running groups out there, but they're more focused on the running aspect of it. This is going to be more the social side of it, so let's meet up. There's a lot of walking talks, but let's go for a run. Just to keep up with your physical daily... I'll be out running anyway, you'll get people to do it with me. I'm fed up running on my own. Obviously, as people were discovering the interview, being a footballer and going through the whole party of life, another party of life, you've found out quite a few things about yourself. Obviously, we've seen the media about the situation with Deli. How important do you find running for your own mental health? What does that give you, just going out for those runs? My runs are non-negotiable now, so I need to do my exercise before 8, 9 o'clock in the morning. First thing in the morning, get some kind of exercise in. I've been injured lately, so it's had to be the gym, which isn't great. I'd rather be out running. It just works wonders for me. I've had medication before from my head and all that, but not a bit running. That's not medical advice, but it's what works for me. I just love running, being out there. I just suck my voice against the endorphins going, setting me down. If I don't, feel as though I'm a little bit off. Do you think that when you don't run, then that creates its own little things? Cos it's something I've started running again recently. I've been on and off for years and years. I've run on my left over 10 years ago and that's one of the hardest things I've ever done. A large part of this year was just having an internal struggle with myself in my head about running. Not about why I need to run. It's so weird and now I'm out and now I am running. Those voices have gone away. Do you have similar things when you're in the gym rather than running? I feel as though I need to run. You can exercise and still get a buzz in the endorphins, but it's just it's different when you go running. You never regret a run unless you get injured. But I've never come back feeling worse. I still go to the gym every morning while I've been injured, but that cross trainer or the rower just isn't the same. I did it the outside. I tried going to the gym last year and I just hate gyms. It's not in me. You've been a professional sportsman. You obviously have to go through that. Gyms are stressful as well. I don't know what to do in gyms. I had a personal trainer and they teach me things. Literally in five minutes I would forget them. I've got that kind of mind, but even going to gyms is quite stressful. That's why I do like running. All I have to worry about is plotting where I'm running. That's another thing I stress about is if I don't plot a 5K, it affects me massively. I'm like, how far am I going to go? That's the only thing I need to do, but gyms are very stressful. Running is such an easy thing to do, isn't it? It does give you that. Especially when you finish body just gets flooded. You just feel grife just for those little moments afterwards. It's free. All you have to do is put your running stuff on, put a pair of tellies on and off you go. If you start with the chaos, I'll just start. Soon it builds up. I'll just sign off for another marathon for my birthday. I'm treating myself to the Amsterdam Marathon. I used to hate running when I played football by the way pre-season, but now I'm paying to go and run a marathon. I'd say get your pre-seasons where proper running as well. None of this will play with the ball the way it likes. Any sand dunes? Sand dunes, crocky park, running round till you're literally be sick. Old school, just run till you drop. Sewn bych. You'll be back with that this week only. But he was always at the front. He was so fair for his age. That's standard, isn't it? That's what I'd say to standards. Obviously, like you mentioned, the deli situation, is this from what you've seen, are those situations common in football where footballers are being pulled in loads of different directions and can lead to situations where players basically don't want to play. I know you spoke about this with Baz over on the other channel, but is it something you think is common in football? It's more common than people would think. Brave of deli to come out and do it. Someone ought to do it. It's not nice to hear. It's quite sad to hear, but it needs to be said. It needs to be brought to the public's attention. More... Now that it's out there, let's keep it relevant and keep talking about it. There's better... Oh, what the word, Mark? Within the club, there's more help for them. But still, they're still overhuman. They still have the bad days. Is that a big difference now? Obviously, when you were playing, there was a lot less care, probably a lot, probably zero after care if you were released by the club. You would have made two, gone and stuff. Is that one of the big improvements in football now is that you have people at various stages that can help people and help them get treatment because there's so much stuff now, isn't it? Listen, we talk every day about football and I often do it. I slip into forgetting they are human beings. There's the social media side of things. There's just the general pressure of being a football and what comes with that. So it is massively important. And then there's a lot of things, like you're saying, the hidden things as well. I imagine there's actually a lot more coming out about the LGBT community within football and things like that. So it is massively important, isn't it, that they're getting help at every stage? Yeah, I feel it's not like any other profession. It'd be different, you know what I mean, but footballers are just seen as they turn up, they should play. And that's all they are in football. They're not human beings in football. And I've been guilty of it, even though I've been on the other side of it as well. I'm still guilty of it and I have to check myself. But the more we talk about it, and we're learning, the clubs are learning, the Premier League's learning, the football league's learning, and it'll keep getting better the more we know and the more we talk about it. Yeah, I think it's a generational thing as well, isn't it? There's still a lot of like, there's still a lot of like, you know, man up kind of thing and all this kind of thing gets thrown around all the time. Like, you know, they're on all this money, they should be doing better, but we forget, we do forget. I bought my own book. I forget all the time. Viewers of this channel will know that. I forget all the time that people have problems. They have problems away from whether it be, you know, as Deli said, things from his past catching up with them or whether it be things in the present. And just the pressures of playing football, cos you know, as you described in the interview, they're incredible. You carry the hopes and dreams of thousands and thousands of people. Yeah, exactly. I mean, just cos there's football, they still have to live life on life's terms and life's terms could be whatever they're going through at home, you know what I mean? Like every normal person and we just don't see that, we just think they're immune to what we go through there at football and money can solve that. Money can't solve your head, blade, me or your fitness or your health, you know what I mean? It's like, but we're all guilty of it all. We get caught up in the moment. We're obviously working with the community at the moment, so you obviously see a lot of the real life struggles as well. How difficult is it seeing some of those things as well? It's difficult. I feel as though, as I said to Baz before, I was walking around the city with blinkers on sometimes. Some of the stuff that I see now working within the community, it's heartbreaking. You wouldn't think it would go on in our city, but it does. Even the community, I'm not just saying this cos I work there, but what they do is unbelievable. Probably the biggest football charity in the world, and I put that out there. I've got over 50 other programmes running. You can be coming into our programmes from dads who've just had new babies or new dads up until the end of life care, so those are the programmes. So at any stage in your life you can be involved with everything in the community. No, they're a fantastic organisation. I know we've done a few things to sleep out. We jumped off a mountain for them once as well, the zip wire in Wales. Yes, so far. Jumped off the top balcony as well for them as well, but they are amazing. I wouldn't mind doing that one. We've done that one after we've done the zip wire in Wales, and it just didn't feel like anything once you've done that zip wire. So that was brilliant, so if you never want to raise some money maybe do that one. So where can we find out more about the running obviously to get people down? Social Striders Liverpool on Instagram. I've just launched it now. Bit more information is going to be going out probably tomorrow about their first meet-up time place. Get down there. It's all got together, have a chat. It's going to be a safe place for people to talk. Even whatever ability, whether you've run 10 marathons or you've run 10 metres, get down there and you'll be welcome. Let's talk. Brilliant stuff, brilliant stuff. There you go. For more about Michael and his journey make sure you check out the interview with Baz. That will be linked at the end of this show. Do you want to come out for a run? I've been doing it recently. This and I've started with 2.5K because again mentally it's that thing of like if I try and go and do 5K I'm going to give up. Oh yeah, you won't have to do the 5K. There'll be some people just growing out 500 metres, 10 man come back, 500 metres. I just did 2.5K and I'm just building myself up slowly because I made a mess of it last time. So Dave, you've got more information over on the Instagram. We'll link that as well. Big thanks to Michael for coming in and thanks for watching Selfie TV. See you later.