Viv Nicholson- rip

spend spend spend..........and she did

aye, also got on cover of a smiths single

And the 1985 Smiths 'Meat Is Murder' tour programme. Still have my copy.

Utterly unremarkable non-entity.

Married 4 times
2 die in car crashes
1 dies of an overdose

Did her first husband not get killed in a car crash on the way to Beverley races shortly after she won the money?

At least there was some logic with the Pools. Pity the Lottery has killed it off.

Back in the 70`s when i was a kid, we had a guy `the pools man` we called him (original i know), who came to collect my parents pools slips/payments and oddly enough, he also died in a car crash.

What was going on?

A terrifying conspiracy which I suspect goes to the very heart of the JFK Assassination.

No-one was left to testify.

THERE WAS SOME EGYPTIANS WHO SAW THE PYRAMIDS IN THEIR HAYDAY ,I SAW THE FOOTBALL POOLS IN THEIR HAYDAY.RIP VIV

You knew you were a shrewdie when you used a pools collector rather than pay the postage.

Of course, there was also the small matter of the firms keeping about 60% of the pool as "expenses and commission", but we didn't understand what that meant and, like Nicholson, we were happy in our ignorance.

How many firms can you name?

Littlewoods, the big 'un at a whopping penny a line, and funded an empire for the Moores and a shopping spree for Viv Nicholson, very possibly in the Moores family stores;

Vernons, also from Liverpool, but something like a farthing a line, so still worthwhile divis, and funded Sangster's racing empire, which led to N American bloodstock ruling the world;

Zetters, for the real cheapskates like my family at 1/20p a line. This enabled you to devise the most outrageously complicated plans and perms, usually involving about 40 selections, with a guarantee that something like 20 correct draws would guarantee you a line with 6 correct, which still didn't guarantee a divi on this pool. Zetters also funded a racing empire, that of Carries Zetter, whose blue colours usually featured at Fontwell rather than Royal Ascot;

Soccer, Empire of Blackpool and Copes were all variations on the Zetters low-cost model. Copes was also a bookmaker.

spot the ball was the biggest fiddle ....i knew a pools collector considered thatspot the ball  has his bonus.........he never used to send all of them in..........used to sent a couple but the majority he would put in the bin and keep the money

They lived next door to one of my best pals brother with him and his parents behind them,they were the only 3 houses on the site,just reading the obit this morning its described as sprawling with a swimming pool,they had long gone when I used to visit my pal but I don't recall any swimmimg pool and while it will have been pretty decent for the time unless its had a massive revamp I'd guess it at around 400k today.
My pal did tell me that his brothers wife who could hold her own in the talking stakes used to have massive rows with Viv over the parties etc.
Think the husband got killed on his way back from catterick races.

I wonder how many pools collectors were on the fiddle.  Pretty safe with the Spot The Ball, I suppose.  I used to collect with my mate at our workplace and we handed it all in.  Some collector in our village got caught out as one of the customers won and contacted Littlewoods.  I doubt if the pools companies wanted any publicity about it though, so very little heard of these cases.  There must have been hundreds or thousands of bent collectors.

What do you mean Jack?

How would they know they had won. Do you mean thought they could have won?

I used the special stamp, and often had it over where the ball was meant to be and, with the tiny crosses being so close together, should have been in with a chance but so were thousands of others.

Being naive I never thought about the collector being bent!

She was 25 when she scooped £152,000 in 1961, that would be equivalent today of winning about £5million on the lottery. She was unable to handle money properly and blew the lot in 5 years. There was a TV documentary about her years ago and I think if I remember right, she said we actually put a cross for no publicity.  Not sure about that but fairly sure she did say it !

Aunty, I meant they had won the pools rather than spot the ball.  Sorry if not clear.

my father in law used to use a collector,he collected every thursday tea.one thursday he never came,you guessed it his numbers came up,he had 7 draws & would have had 2nd div for about £1200 (nice pick up 1970s).apparently he never spoke for a week after the results came through,& when the pools guy came the following week chased him down the street with a cricket bat.

did you marry Miss Boycott ?

her husband Keith, who was the actual pools winner was from Crosskeys in South Wales.

... chased him down the street with a cricket bat.

Howzat?

The house they bought, back then, was always a miserable looking place and nothing has changed.

The best thing about it was the open views at the front.[img]http://images.onesite.com/community.betfair.com/user/aunty_post/4...