Web Page No 2620

28th September 2019

Football pools

1^st Picture: Littlewoods Coupon

 2^nd Picture: Littlewoods Checking Office

 3^rd Picture: Pottery worker Edwin Dodd, his wife & their four-year-old son celebrated a £1,000 Pools win in 1934 

4^th Picture: Len Martin who read the football results from the first edition of Grandstand in 1958 until his death in 1995

None of our family took part in the Football Pools and so I know very little about them. As far as I can make out they were cheap to enter, with the potential to win a very large sum of money. Entries were traditionally submitted through the post or via collector agents. The traditional and most popular game was the Treble Chance which was when players picked 10, 11 or 12 football matches from the fixtures to finish as a draw, in which each team scores at least one goal. The Player with the most accurate predictions won the top prize, or a share of it if more than one player with the same predictions.

Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters were the largest pools companies. Littlewoods was the first company to provide pools, selling them outside Manchester United’s Old Trafford ground in 1923. In 1986, a syndicate of players became the first winners of a prize over £1 million.

Several companies ran pools coupons, the largest being Littlewoods and Vernons (both based in Liverpool), as well as Zetters (of London), (Leicester) and these companies have, in the past, organised similar games, the most famous of which was known as Treble Chance. Where the players were given a list of matches set to take place over the coming week and attempted to pick a line of eight of them, whose results would be worth the most points by the scoring scheme; traditionally by crossing specific boxes on a printed coupon. A proportion of the players' combined entry fees was distributed as prizes among those whose entries were worth the highest scores.

The pools business declined after the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994. In 2007, the Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters companies came together to form The New Football Pools.

The BBC television programme Grandstand used to broadcast the winning match numbers as part of its "Final Score" segment in the late afternoon. Only three people have so far announced the classified football results on the programme since its inception in 1958: Len Martin until his death in 1995 and since then, Tim Gudgin; Mark E. Smith, singer from the band The Fall, read out the football results as his band's track Theme from Sparta F.C. was the programme's theme music. Pools news was also given out on the BBC radio programme Sports Report until May 2007.

Some notable UK football pools winners:^[3]

Year	Winner	Amount	Notes
1957	Nellie McGrail, Stockport	£205,235
1961	Keith Nicholson, Castleford	£152,319
1972	Cyril Grimes, Liss, Hampshire	£512,683	first win over £500,000
1979	Irene Powell, Port Talbot	£882,000	first win over £750,000
1986	a syndicate of hospital workers from Devizes	£1,017,890	first million-pound win
1987	Barry Dinsdale, Kingston upon Hull	£1,910,972
1991	Rodi Woodcock	£2,072,220	first double-millionaire
1993	Judy Smith, Isle of Portland	£2,077,683.60	highest UK win at that time
1994	a syndicate from Worsley	£2,924,622	the inaugural weekend of the National Lottery
2010	14 players shared £3 million and one Zetters player scooped £1 million
2010	Michael Elliott, Brechin	£3,001,511
2011	four winners won £3 million split four ways, each receiving £750,000

Competition from the National Lottery led to a rapid fall-off in players, from a peak of 10 million in 1994 to 700,000 in 2007. Vernons closed its pools operation in February 1998. In 2000, Littlewoods Pools was sold for £161 million.

Over the years The Football Pools have donated over £1.1 billion to sporting-related causes.

The pools feature prominently in the British films Easy Money (1948) and Home and Away (1956) starring Jack Warner.

But I still would not know how to start filling in the form!!!!

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

You Write:

News and Views:

On this day 28th September 1960-65:

On 28/09/1960 the number one single was Tell Laura I Love Her - Ricky Valance and the number one album was Down Drury Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings. The top rated TV show was The Army Game (Granada) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 28/09/1961 the number one single was Johnny Remember Me - John Leyton and the number one album was The Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 28/09/1962 the number one single was She's Not You - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 28/09/1963 the number one single was She Loves You - The Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 28/09/1964 the number one single was I'm Into Something Good - Herman's Hermits and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 28/09/1965 the number one single was Tears - Ken Dodd and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was LPs cost 12/6d.