The Pools

crodonilson · Jan 24, 2014

Used to be a national institution by Grandmother used to play every week, alongside spot the ball (she cheated, she had a big stanp that put 50 x's on the picture). She even used to play during the Summer with her expert knowledge of Australian football.

Now I know of no-one who plays. Does anyone on here still have a go?? Is there still a Pools man who comes round to collect your coupon??

Anyone here had any big wins??

tinycowboy · Jan 24, 2014

I filled in the form for my gran once - got 5 score draws. Great start, but she never let me do it again. This was in Southwick in the late 1970s. Think she stopped early to mid 1980s. Pretty odd really, door to door gambling...

Tricky Dicky · Jan 24, 2014

I did the pools for years - won £3k once plus a few other smaller bits. Tried it online recently but only once or twice.

Gazwag · Jan 24, 2014

My Dad use to do it every week, but alway used the same numbers.

Every so often I did the 8 home wins or 5 away wins.

I guess its all online and direct debit nowadays

Puppet Master · Jan 24, 2014

Is it even still going?

Before the National Lottery it seemed a very liable way to win a lot of money

Albumen · Jan 24, 2014

http://www.footballpools.com/

Tubby Mondays · Jan 24, 2014

crodonilson said:
Used to be a national institution by Grandmother used to play every week, alongside spot the ball (she cheated, she had a big stanp that put 50 x's on the picture). She even used to play during the Summer with her expert knowledge of Australian football.

Now I know of no-one who plays. Does anyone on here still have a go?? Is there still a Pools man who comes round to collect your coupon??

Anyone here had any big wins??

My dad used to have a decent round collecting it every wednesday nights (or was it thursdays?) up until about 95/96 when the lottery sort of killed it. A lot of people did it up until then. And obviously there wasnt the loads of different way you can gamble on football like there is now.

He used to get the arse because people used to stop doing it in the summer (not with people that made out they knew a bit about football so much) but with those that picked the same numbers every week based on birthdays and ages etc. He had a point that if you do number 33 on the coupon every week then it doesnt matter whether its grimsby v hartlepool or brisbane v melbourne.

I dont know of anyone that does it now. Do they still give what were the score draws etc and what the dividend forecast is at the end of the scores on a saturday?

Talking of going round door to door collecting stuff; do people still have insurance people and the like going round collecting? i can still remember my nan having a Mrs Woods and a Mr smith coming round every week to collect her insurance money for differnt policies.

backson · Jan 24, 2014

It's all a bit Jumpers for Goalposts this

1 1/2 points for an away win
Grandstand announcing "Claims must be made for 22 points and higher" after the classifieds
"Match Postponed - Pools Panel result - no score draw"

Badger · Jan 24, 2014

My dad used to do it every week and let me pick a set of numbers at the start of the season, I remember getting excited when the numbers came through on the vidiprinter. As soon as The National Lottery came along that was it though :down:

crodonilson · Jan 24, 2014

backson said:
It's all a bit Jumpers for Goalposts this

1 1/2 points for an away win
Grandstand announcing "Claims must be made for 22 points and higher" after the classifieds
"Match Postponed - Pools Panel result - no score draw"

Did you know the pools panel consists of Roger Hunt, Gordon Banks, Lionel Blair, David Davies and darts commentator Tony Green??

Icy Gull · Jan 24, 2014

crodonilson said:
Did you know the pools panel consists of Roger Hunt, Gordon Banks, Lionel Blair, David Davies and darts commentator Tony Green??

Can't decide if he was a goal keeper or a striker

W.C. · Jan 24, 2014

I still remember the pools man coming round to collect my dad's coupon on, I think, a Tuesday. Would always rush to the door so I could pay it myself.

Won 1000 quid on spot the ball in about 1982. Bought a VHS recorder. Top loader. Had it for over a decade.

Cian · Jan 24, 2014

My mother, who has zero interest in football, used to both play and at one point sell pools entries. It probably caused thousands of middle aged women to at least know the names of random football clubs, particular over summer when it went to random matches (Australia comes to mind).

The organisers have morphed that specific pools in to a car and cash draw/raffle rather than having the actual pools bit now by the looks of things.

Gazwag · Jan 24, 2014

Icy Gull said:
Can't decide if he was a goal keeper or a striker

View attachment 50472

Reminds me of Phil Jones taking the penalty on Wednesday night

Norman Potting · Jan 24, 2014

Although my dad did it ever week, and tried to explain it to me, I never had a scooby doo how it all worked. I got the idea of "8 score draws, 24 points" but got completely lost with "perms" (thought that was to do with hair do's) and lines.

....But I will never forget the "....Telegram claims are required for 23points or over, forecast jackpot".

seagullsovergrimsby · Jan 24, 2014

Once the lottery came along the importance of doing the Pools faded away , 20 years later the lottery is losing its appeal too.

sully · Jan 24, 2014

crodonilson said:
Used to be a national institution by Grandmother used to play every week, alongside spot the ball (she cheated, she had a big stanp that put 50 x's on the picture). She even used to play during the Summer with her expert knowledge of Australian football.

Now I know of no-one who plays. Does anyone on here still have a go?? Is there still a Pools man who comes round to collect your coupon??

Anyone here had any big wins??

It wasn't cheating, the pools company sold the stamps as it was easier for the scanners to detect where the centre of the cross was.

I used to be a pools collector for years. My dad was the main collector for Burgess Hill.

Over the years, I'm sure I made more money from being a collector than I did from wins, but I did have a few that were several hundreds, rather than life changing amounts.

It was odd that Littlewoods seemed complacent about the threat of the lottery and were seriously unprepared, which is why their demise was so swift. Thankfully, it was around then that my dad retired and I got a proper job, so it didn't affect us much.

The Wookiee · Jan 24, 2014

Don't know how true this is but if you sent your coupon off in the post say on the Monday after the weekends games and picked a winning permutation but you had access to a franking machine and put it through with a date of the previous week most of the time the pools company paid out ??

Mackenzie · Jan 24, 2014

I went to the Bristol play off final with a former pools collector who let me in to a TERRIBLE secret.

Basically the football pools money had to add up, if he'd miscounted or mucked up the collection he'd use the spot the ball money to make up the difference.

:nono:

edna krabappel · Jan 24, 2014

Anyone else remember James Alexander Gordon ending his round up of the results on BBC Radio Five Live (or whatever it was back in the Goldstone days) with the pools news?

"Today's pools news: there were nineteen home wins, fourteen away wins, and thirteen draws, of which nine were scoring draws: numbers four, eleven, twelve, seventeen, twenty three, twenty four, twenty five, thirty, and forty two.And the dividend forecast is....low".

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