Family Appeals for Missing Rolex After Father’s Death at Football Game

The son of a taxi driver who passed away after collapsing at a football match has expressed his family’s fervent wish to recover his father’s missing Rolex watch. Jamie Gray, 31, who resides in Halstead, Essex, was with his father, Kevin Gray, from Stowmarket, Suffolk, attending a West Ham game in Stratford, east London, on December 9. His 61-year-old father collapsed and subsequently died at the stadium, and his Rolex Submariner watch went missing. “He had that watch for 20 years after being given it as a birthday present and he wore it every day. We don’t care about the money it’s worth, but we just want it back because it was so important to him,” Jamie Gray stated. The finance manager subsequently posted an appeal on X, indicating his family’s desperation to retrieve the “sentimental” timepiece, which is estimated to be worth approximately £14,000. “Dad was one of the nicest blokes going, he would do anything for anyone. He’d been taking me to watch West Ham play since I was five years old,” he remarked. “People have offered to raise money to buy a new one but we don’t want a new watch, we just want our Dad’s watch. “We would never sell it, we just want to keep it in the family and pass it down to our children. It’s a reminder of him and it would mean everything to get it back,” he added. His father, a taxi driver in Sudbury, Suffolk, who had three grandchildren, showed no prior signs of illness before his sudden collapse, which occurred five minutes before the game concluded. Stewards and medics from St John Ambulance transported him up some stairs to a flat surface to begin CPR, and the watch disappeared during this time. “I’d like to think it’s an innocent accident, that maybe it fell off. We won’t hold any grudges or hold anyone accountable, we just want it to be returned,” he said. The family reported the incident to the Metropolitan Police, who confirmed in a statement that officers were “carrying out all relevant inquiries in order to locate the watch” but noted that there had been no arrests “at this early stage.” A spokesperson from London Stadium commented: “We would like to send our condolences to the family. We are assisting the football club by investigating the CCTV footage from Monday evening.”