The Brazilian extended an invite of his own, with Reagan to be a guest at Anfield when Liverpool host Sunderland in the Premier League on that same date, which is also, fittingly, Reagan’s birthday.
Vicky continued: “She’s come a really long way from that tiny little baby that I held in my arms all those years ago.
“If somebody had said to me then when I was sat in the hospital, in a room at the end of a corridor on my own, ‘Listen, in 20-something years, this is going to be her life’, I’d have snatched somebody’s hand off for that.
“She’s an incredible young woman and I would like to think that if people see her on Instagram and she what she’s doing, that if there’s another mum sitting in a hospital room and she’s feeling a bit lost and doesn’t know where to go, that actually it’s not the end of the world, that actually it’s a pretty good life this, you know. It’s not too shabby being Reagan!
“We said it’s not a life sentence, it’s a life enhancement.”
Indeed, were it not for Reagan’s independent streak, it might have been a footballer from a neighbouring team coming to see her at the Environmental Innovation Centre instead.
Her mum is a fierce Everton fan and, by her own admission, tried her best to pass on the allegiance to the Toffees.
But the writing was on the wall when Reagan started refusing to wear blue shirts, and the transformation was completed with a delivery from the postman one day.
“A package came to the house,” recalled Vicky. “And I phoned my husband and said, ‘There’s a package here, were you expecting this?’ He said, ‘Give it to Reagan to open…’
“It was a Liverpool shirt. She put it on at lightning speed! From then it was red or dead, and that’s how it was going to be in our house. And she just embraced everything about Liverpool.
“Then a couple of months after that, we got a flyer through the post about LFC Foundation starting up football sessions. We went along and it was like she’d always been a red, there was never any hint of blue in her past. She lived and breathed everything to do with the club.”
A special film telling Reagan’s story in full will be released across LFC channels on December 25.
To find out more about the club’s approach to equality, diversity and inclusion, visit liverpoolfc.com/redtogether.
If you are interested in finding out more about SMF Inclusion provision with LFC Foundation, please email mathew.murphy@liverpoolfc.com.
