Everton and technical partner hummel are proud to collaborate to present My Everton, a weekly series of first-hand accounts describing the most-treasured memories of fans, players, and staff both past and present.

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My name is Vasco Manuel Magalhães Teixeira (pictured left in the main image) and I live in Portugal. I have been an Evertonian since I was 15 years old... I'm 53 now. I quite regularly get to Goodison to watch my beloved Blues.

I wanted to write this to thank a man called Jimmy Burns.

Jimmy, who must be 60 or perhaps a little older now, has been a friend of mine since I was 18. He's a big reason why I fell in love with Everton in the first place.

He wrote some small books about Everton that I bought and as soon as he found out about my love for Everton over here in Portugal, he would send me copies of the When Skies Are Grey fanzine and Liverpool Echo newspapers every week or two. I loved it. I couldn't get enough and so I ended up subscribing to The Evertonian when it was the newspaper format, too.

After keeping touch via mail, I remember the first time we met up in person.

I'd flown into London and then took a train up to Liverpool for the match. Jimmy was there waiting to meet me at Lime Street Station and he showed me some new places. He took me to his regular pub, where he bought me more than a couple of pints of Guinness! Then, after the match, he helped me get back to the train station as I needed to get back to London to fly home.

We maintained contact for many years, even exchanged Christmas cards, but then as time went on and everything moved to online, we ended up losing touch.

I haven't seen him for around 10 to 15 years now. The last time we met was by complete coincidence, too.

I was over in Liverpool for a game with my now ex-wife and my two sons. I had tried to reach out to Jimmy to no avail. My family and I had jumped on a bus from the city centre to Goodison and who should jump on at another stop? Jimmy! It was fantastic to see him and catch up.

After reading My Everton #45: Making Front-Page News by Bill Mangan and seeing two supporters reunite after such a long time away from each other, I felt inspired to write this as I'd love to catch up again properly.

If it's not to be, let this serve as a thank you for all you have done for me over the years.

You're a great man, Jimmy!

By Vasco Manuel Magalhães Teixeira, Evertonian 

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