Footballer Jesse Lingard had his watch stolen from locker while playing for West Ham

Nick Kenyon

There’s nothing worse than having something stolen. You discover your possession isn’t where you left it. Self-doubt creeps in and you feel like you’re going crazy. You search everywhere in case it’s moved, with the growing feeling that you must have forgotten where you actually put it… That’s exactly the feeling football player Jesse Lingard must have experienced when he returned to his locker room to find his watch missing after playing for West Ham against Everton in a recent Premier League match.

As reported by The Sun, both the police and West Ham – the team that Lingard played for on loan last season – are now involved in trying to catch the brazen thief. More specifically, the club and the authorities are trying to understand how the robber even accessed the players’ rooms at the London Stadium in the first place. Make no mistake, this is easier said that done. The locker room is protected by security patrols and CCTV, yet somehow they were breached and Lingard’s watch was found and taken.

According to an unnamed source for The Sun, “Jesse was devastated, but nobody can believe it. It’s completely unheard of for something to be stolen from inside the players’ dressing rooms during a game.”

The source went on to explain, “Security at the stadium is top class. There are staff guarding the tunnel and all those areas — as well as CCTV all over the place. Of course everyone has searched high and low but it appears it has definitely been taken, and there was no option but to call in the police. Everyone is gutted for him, he loved that watch and thought it would be safe.”

While the stolen watch hasn’t been specifically identified, Lingard is well known for his love of luxury watches and has regularly been spotted wearing pieces from Patek Phillipe and Richard Mille. In other words, the purloined timepiece wouldn’t have come cheap.  To add insult to injury, West Ham contrived to lose the game 1-0, a result that effectively ended their fading hopes of reaching the Champions’ League.