| Originally hailing from Prescot, Merseyside, 25 year-old Ged Brannan
was signed by manager Frank Clark from Tranmere Rovers in March 1997 for
a fee of £750,000. He had started life as a full-back at Prenton Park
before moving into midfield, and it was primarily for his ball-winning
and passing abilities in the middle of the park that Clark was persuaded
to bring him to Maine Road.
He made his debut for City in a 1-1
away draw at Grimsby Town on March 15th, the club's hopes of a late push
for a play-off place rapidly fading as they sat below half-way in the
First Division table. His first goal for the Blues, however, was not
long in coming as he scored the equaliser in a 1-1 draw at Charlton
Athletic three games later, but any promotion hopes had by now
diminished and the season ended with City's fourteenth-place finish the
lowest in the club's history, Brannan having made 11 appearances.
The
1997/98 campaign began with a great deal of optimism as a number of new
signings had been made, but three weeks into the season the team had
only picked up two points from four games in draws with Portsmouth (2-2)
and Ged's former club Tranmere Rovers (1-1) (the photo above is during the game).
They had also been beaten on penalties in the first-round of the League
Cup by Blackpool after drawing 1-1 on aggregate. The first win finally
came at the beginning of September as Brannan's two goals secured a 3-1
away victory at early-season pacesetters Nottingham Forest, but only one
more win came from the next seven games (a 6-0 home thrashing of
Swindon Town) as the club plunged into the bottom three. Brannan was
once more on the mark in a 3-1 defeat at local rivals Stockport County
in November, but things were going from bad to worse as wins were
increasingly hard to come by and within a couple of months the club was
staring relegation in the face. A 2-0 victory over Bradford City in the
FA Cup third-round was a brief respite but after a sequence of seven
games without a win, including a 2-1 defeat at West Ham in the next
round, manager Clark was sacked in mid-February and replaced by
ex-Oldham and Everton boss Joe Royle. This would prove to be the
beginning of the end for Brannan as he fell out of favour with Royle,
starting only two more games until the end of a season that saw the
Blues relegated to Division Two on the last day, despite a 5-2 win at
Stoke City.
Before the start of the 1998/99 season Ged was sent
out on loan to Norwich City, where he made 11 appearances and scored 1
goal. He was recalled in October as City had accepted a bid of £378,000
from Scottish club Motherwell, immediately parting company with the
Blues and heading north of the border to link up with ex-Tranmere Rovers
teammate Pat Nevin, who had become the club's chief executive while
still playing in the first-team. Ged had made 46 appearances (including 5
as substitute) in his time at Maine Road, scoring 4 goals, and he was
perhaps unfortunate to be signed at a time when the club was at it's
lowest ebb
Curiously enough in his time at Motherwell he was
selected to play for the Cayman Islands national team due to a loophole
in the regulations, but his international ambitions were thwarted as
FIFA put a block on it. He returned to England in 2001 when he signed
for Wigan Athletic and later had spells on loan at Dunfermline and
Rochdale before eventually drifting into non-league football, where he
announced his retirement in 2007 after helping Morecambe into the
Football League. He came out of retirement shortly afterwards to play
non-league football once more before moving into coaching. (David
Redshaw)
1990–1997 Tranmere Rovers 238 (20)
1997–1998 Manchester City 42 (4)
1998 Norwich City (loan) 11 (1)
1998–2001 Motherwell 81 (16)
2001–2003 Wigan Athletic 52 (0)
2003 Dunfermline Athletic (loan) 8 (0)
2003 Rochdale (loan) 11 (1)
2003–2005 Accrington Stanley 49 (7)
2005 Radcliffe Borough 11 (0)
2005–2007 Morecambe 55 (1)
2007–2008 Vauxhall Motors 11 (1)
2013-2015 Southport & Ainsdale Amateurs ? (?)
Total 569 (51 goals)
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