Fran Guillén's beach encounter with Jesús Gil in Huelva

Fran Guillén recalls how, as a boy, he swam out towards Jesús Gil on a beach in Huelva and ended up in an impromptu chat in the sea. The president signed him an autograph and, without him knowing, sent a ball and a poster to his home.

Asked whether he is a Jesús Gil or a Gil Marín man, Fran Guillén tells the story Rubén Uría asks him for. It was a summer in the early 90s, when Atleti played the Trofeo Colombino, a pre-season tournament in Huelva, almost every year, and bumping into the team's players around the city was nothing unusual.

One day, while swimming near the shore, he thought he spotted Jesús Gil in the distance and started swimming towards him as his mother shouted to his father that the boy was drowning. It was indeed Gil, who was in the water with his brother. What followed was a surreal conversation between the Gils, Fran's father and Fran himself, talking transfers while waist-deep in the sea.

Back on the beach, he asked for an autograph on the back of the beach bar's bill and told Gil he was the only Atlético fan at his school. Gil patted him on the head, encouraged him to keep it up and signed it "to my friend Paquito, a great Atlético fan"; Fran insists he is the only person who has ever called him Paquito. Gil also asked his mother for their address and, one day when he got home from school, a box was waiting for him with a ball, a poster and an Atlético pennant.