Lions fan looks to return wallet — 12 years on
A Lions fan is looking to reunite a lost wallet with its owner, 12 years after he found it on the ground at Eden Park.
UK man Mark Edwards was last in New Zealand for the 2005 Lions tour and hasn’t returned since — until now.
The rugby enthusiast is back for this year’s tour and while he’s here he wants to find Laurie Edward Cooper, the person he believes the wallet belongs to.
Edwards told how he came across the black foldover men’s wallet as he left Auckland’s Eden Park after the final test in 2005.
“We suffered a very close defeat if I remember rightly, so I was walking out of the stadium with my head down, and I saw a wallet on the floor.
“It’s a very plain ordinary black leather wallet, there’s a little logo on it, a little lion or something.”
Photos of the inside of the wallet show a Versace logo.
Edwards picked it up and checked it for ID, but with thousands of people around it was going to be a hard task finding the owner, so he popped the wallet in his Lions jacket pocket intending to hand it to police and promptly forgot about it.
Edwards then packed his Lions gear up, only pulling it out again in recent weeks to see if the 12-year-old uniform still fitted. “I put [the jacket] on and thought what the hell’s that? And then I remembered.” The wallet still holds $45 in cash, a to-do list, a UK driver’s licence, a Lotto lucky dip and Kiwi and UK bank cards in it.
It also contained a photo of a smiling man and woman in formal wear beaming at the camera. Laurie Edward Cooper was named on the driver’s licence and despite it being from the UK, the licence said Cooper was born in New Zealand. “I’ve googled and a couple of Laurie Coopers come up but I don’t know if it’s the right one or not,” Edwards said. The Lions fan is due stay until Wednesday next week. “I have the wallet with me. The plan was to hopefully try and find the individual and return it to him.” Edwards was not looking for any kind of reward, he just wanted to return the wallet to its rightful owner. If that person could be found Edwards said he would love to go for a beer with them.