MORE WINNERS THAN EVER!

from The Pools August 2022

MICHAEL OWEN SPENDS A DAY BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE POOLS

By Paul Knowles

With over 14,000 winners of The Pools every year we have a fantastic job delivering often life-changing news to men and women of all ages all over the country.

Most of the time people are in shock when they hear the news they’ve won, and sometimes they actually hang up thinking it’s a wind-up. They quickly call back when they realise it’s for real!

There are so many stories to share but here are a few of our most recent winners’ stories that really stood out.

If you want to read more head over to www.footballpools. com/winners where you will find the top 60 most recent winners’ stories and videos.

Mr Gerald Vince, (Coventry) £65,000

Mr Pink, (Surrey) £167,417,46

Mr Brian Pink from Surrey became our second big Classic Pools winner in April, securing a massive £167,000 – not bad for a £1 bet!

Surrey pensioner Brian Pink has netted a huge win of more than £167,000 on the Football Pools thanks to a last gasp Premier League equalizer from Everton.

When the Blues boosted their own relegation battle fortunes with a stoppage time goal from Richarlison against Leicester City, they changed Mr Pink’s in a big way too.

Everton’s 1-1 draw with Leicester gave him eight score draws on the Classic Pools and, as the only player to correctly predict the lucky 8, he scooped £167,417.46 in return for his £1 bet. Mr Pink, who has been picking his favourite numbers on his coupon every week for 17 years, couldn’t believe it when he took a call from the Football Pools to reveal the amount.

Because the successful line wasn’t one of his own pair, it was a free one given to loyal players, he didn’t even realise he’d won.

“I honestly thought it must be a joke,” he said. “It really didn’t sink in properly until the big cheque arrived with my name on!”

Everton striker Richarlison’s dramatic 92nd minute equalizer at Goodison Park in the midweek match against the Foxes wasn’t his only piece of goal-den good fortune.

His selections from the Premier League’s Easter Monday fixtures also included the Reading v Swansea match, meaning his chances of winning were looking very slim when Swansea raced into a 4-1 lead. But the Royals roared back and secured an improbable 4-4 draw, putting his allimportant score draw streak back on track.

Mr Pink’s massive win was the second six-figure prize paid out on Classic Pools in April, following on from Lee Edwards from Norfolk, who scooped £296,000 at the beginning of the month.

After losing his wife Kathleen in May last year, Mr Pink says he now intends to treat the rest of their family with his surprise windfall.

He’s already making plans to share it with his daughter and two sons, and his eight grandchildren.

“This is fantastic, it’s an absolutely life-changing amount and obviously I would have loved my wife to have been here to witness it,” he added. “But now I’m just really looking forward to sharing it with the rest of my family. I can’t wait to spoil them.” Lee Edwards, (Norfolk) £296,000.05

“I can’t believe I won the rollover on The Football Pools”

Philip Pollard £65,000

Nina Curran, (Hull) £65,001

“When I won I thought I’d pay off my mortgage, but then I thought no! I will use it to do something I have always wanted to do which is to work with voluntary services over seas” A Hull teacher who survived two brain tumours is about to fulfil her lifelong dream to work with children in a developing country after scooping £65,000 on the Irish Lottery. Nina Curran started playing the Lucky Clover game after a second brain surgery in July 2019.

Now, after matching five numbers, the 48-year-old plans use her windfall to take at least a year off from teaching in Hull to join one of the Voluntary Service Organisation’s education programmes. She says the win has given her the chance to pursue an ambition she’s had since starting her career: to give youngsters in some of the world’s poorest countries access to learning.

“VSO is something I’ve always wanted to do, I remember when I was 26 looking into it and speaking to them,” she explains. “I was planning to go to Burma but then Covid happened, my daughter had to come back from China where she’d been studying and she decided to do a masters here, so I thought I couldn’t go because I’d have to stay to support her.

“Winning this money means there’s nothing stopping me. Hopefully I can go somewhere for at least 12 months, maybe 18 months, because it’s given me that extra security blanket to go and do it without having to worry.”

Nina has lived and taught in Hull since moving to the city from Manchester for her first job 26 years ago.

A single parent to daughter Dervla, now 24, she began experiencing health problems not long after her 30th birthday.

“I’d had some very strange symptoms, tingling in my face, I lost the feeling in my eye, I kept losing my balance and I was really tired all the time,” she explains. “My mum and a lot of people who knew me thought I had MS because I was sleeping so much.

“I’d had neuralgia diagnosed when I was 18 and when the tingling spread down my face and started getting worse my GP wrote repeatedly to neurologists because he was so concerned about me.”

After two years of perseverance, Nina was finally given a brain scan and the results revealed a large benign tumour.

“I was told it was the size of a satsuma and they booked me in three days later to have surgery,” she recalls. “I was asked if I’d written a will because they couldn’t guarantee I’d make it through the operation. I’d not long turned 30 and my daughter had just turned 7, so it was a very frightening time.”

Surgeons at Hull Royal Infirmary managed to remove the tumour and she was able to return to teaching, moving on to deputy and head teacher roles. When similar symptoms returned just over two years ago, and a scan showed the tumour had grown back, a second operation was also a success.

It was while she was recovering from her second surgery that Nina signed up to play the Football Pools and its Lucky Clover game.

“At the time my daughter was studying in China and I was stuck at home not being able to do anything so I thought, I’ve got nothing to lose and it would be nice if I actually won something,” she says.

Nina took out a monthly subscription and in August this year got her first win.

“I got a message saying ‘congratulations, you’ve won on Lucky Clover - you’ve won £1.50’,” she laughs.

“But that turned out to be just the warm-up because on September 16 I got another message and this time it said I’d won £65,000!

“I’d only just turned my phone on because I’d been at work all day, so I went on the site to double check it wasn’t a mistake. I phoned up to confirm because I felt like I wanted to know it was true before I got too excited.

“They rang me about 30 minutes later and said ‘yes, it’s true’.”

Nina initially thought about buying a new car with her winnings, but soon realised her dream of teaching with the VSO meant more to her.

“I looked at several, but then I thought I can live with my old car, I really want to go away,” she says. “I need to go and live my life and do something I’ve always wanted to do, and this is the money that allows me to do that.

“Having the two brain tumours definitely changed my perspective and when my daughter was away, she travelled all over and I thought I’ve never been to half the countries she’s been to, I haven’t seen as much of the world as I’d love to.

“I’ve always wanted to do VSO and go out and give that bit more in places in the world where they’re not as lucky as we are here. That’s always been my motive in teaching, to give children the opportunities that they deserve because life is about opportunities.”

Mrs Burnett (Lanarkshire) £8047

“I got a text through from The Football Pools, but I just ignored it. When I checked my bank account, it was there! £8000 I’m so happy! Thank you everybody” Mr P Blazier (London) £2,153