– credit, The Secret Garden Rawdon
An English sports reporter has been reunited with a wallet that he never knew he’d lost more than 30 years ago.
Among the time capsule treasures was a Leeds United membership card from the 1992-93 Premier League season when he used to cover the Whites for the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Owner Mark Dexter used to live in the area of Rawden where it was found, and was a frequent patron in the local pub scene, but admitted he doesn’t remember losing a wallet, and was at a loss for how it turned up there.
The wallet was found by the organizer of a local forest school, “but I’ve no recollection of ever walking down there at any time in the past” said Dexter, “so I’ve no idea how it’s got there.”
Working assumptions are that it might have been stolen on a night when he had more than his fair share of brews, perhaps while attending a cricket match.
Claire Wilson, the school owner, found it and posted on Facebook some images of its contents asking if anyone was able to locate the person portrayed on the Leeds card—issued at the start of a season where Leeds were preparing to defend the English football title, which they had won the previous year over Manchester United.
“Given that I was a sports reporter, you would have thought I would have had more of a smile on my face on the Leeds card,” Dexter told the BBC.
Dexter’s wife saw the Facebook post and the pair went to retrieve the old wallet.
– credit, Mark Dexter
Wilson said the area where she found it had once been a private garden, and at another time was attached to a nearby hotel. The wallet had been swallowed up by the weeds and uncovered whilst cutting those back as part of a community project run through the forest school.
For 63-year-old Mark, it was a strange and serendipitous reason to take a moment and appreciate a life well-lived.
“In ’92 I was 30 and happy, having a good time, loving journalism, loving working in newspapers. It was just great.”
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