Before the days of the Lottery....The Pools

We had a works Syndicate in late 60's and we won a small amount -came to about £30 each so I bought a new Phillips car cassette player that I fitted into arm rest between front seats - I put speakers in each door and it sounded fantastic.

I had a 1965 Ford Zodiac exec with connolly leather front single seats which could easily hold two hot sweaty naked bodies. So I was told :)
 
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I remember the pools well. Every Saturday morning, the pools man came round my grandads with his little leather satchel collecting the entries.

Does anyone remember the football cards in the pub? A grid of football teams, you paid your money and put your name on the teams you wanted and then the winning team would be revealed by scratching off the winner box.
 
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DXP55 said:
We had a works Syndicate in late 60's and we won a small amount -came to about £30 each so I bought a new Phillips car cassette player that I fitted into arm rest between front seats - I put speakers in each door and it sounded fantastic.

I had a 1965 Ford Zodiac exec with connolly leather front single seats which could easily hold two hot sweaty naked bodies. So I was told :)
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I passed my test in a Vauxhall Victor, 3-speed column change manual, had a bench front seat :), loved that car.
 
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I remember my father and my grandfather "doing the pools" every saturday afternoon? Sunday at the latest it was a weekly ritual. Never won a darn thing to my knowledge I remember the sheets with a bazillion boxes to cross and it being very time consuming I don't know at what point it stopped
 
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Blackjack Davy said:
I remember my father and my grandfather "doing the pools" every saturday afternoon? Sunday at the latest it was a weekly ritual. Never won a darn thing to my knowledge
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Yeh, my dad did them for years, never won a red cent.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
and for those who don't know, you had to predict the draws, I think you got more points for draws with no goals.
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Yep, I think you got 3 points for a 1-1 draw, 2 points for a high score draw, and 1 point for a 0-0 draw. I think you needed something like 11 correct results to win something significant

Also, there was spot the ball, where you had to mark an X in the exact centre of the ball on a picture where the ball was obviously erased out.

Edit, I was slightly wrong....

www.fourfourtwo.com

How do the Football Pools work?

The famous betting game turns 100 years old next year - but it's still going strong
www.fourfourtwo.com www.fourfourtwo.com
 
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My dad won spot the ball in 1980. 6k at the time. Enough for us to go to america for 6 weeks touring the west coast in a motorhome...then got my dad a new car when we got back home.

EDIT - NEW CAR :D Cheers @Mr Badger
 
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I never knew of Spot The Ball but I do remember the Pools. The only big winner I knew of was a mate's uncle (never met him) who won £1000 in 1995. 1995 was shortly after Camelot's National Lottery started up. The reason why the lotto ended up becoming more popular is because apparently the odds were better by picking 6 balls from 1-49. The odds have got to be worse now that the ball selection is 1-59 if memory serves.
 
My dad had a winning pools coupon for a jackpot 250,000 in the early 60's, sadly mum forgot to pay it for him, I still have the coupon to this day
 
As kids my mum and dad did the pools and got me and my brother did "spot the ball". We never won a penny during all those years. As soon as the National Lottery started we never played the pools again and while we never won anything big on the lotto, we won £10 every month or so, so we got so much more out of it.
 
subbytna said:
My dad won spot the ball in 1980. 6k at the time. Enough for us to go to america for 6 weeks touring the west coast in a motorhome...then got my dad a new card when we got back home.
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Us old uns will remember that when you saw the winning ball on the picture it always seemed to be in an impossible place.
eg All the players could be looking to the right but the ball was over to the left.
 
I remember my dad and grandad doing it. I never fad much interest in football when I was younger so never did it.
Spot the ball was funny had to get it pin point dead on, but it was never anywhere near where you thought it was lol.
 
old gamer said:
My dad had a winning pools coupon for a jackpot 250,000 in the early 60's, sadly mum forgot to pay it for him, I still have the coupon to this day
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My dad had a similar tale from when he was young used to do the pools with his dad. Apparently one time he was in a rush to go out with his girlfriend (who ended up being his wife/my mother) and he submitted the wrong bit of paper (counterfoil, copy or whatever it was rather than the actual pools form) for his dad. They did the same numbers every week and when the football results came in his dad thought they were in the money. Pools company refused to pay out.
 
For the spot the ball competitions, you could buy rubber stamps with loads of X's on them and then just stamp the area you thought the ball was in. You had to pay per X, and even then you could be slightly off.
 
Blast from the past! I feel old now! I did the pools back in the 80s but never won owt. Then on a Saturday night a bloke came round the working men's club selling The Green Un, was a fantastic paper with all the footy results etc in it. Those were the days
 
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