‘I worked at the Football Pools and helped make dreams come true’
WE’VE all heard the fabulous stories of winning your fortune on the Football Pools.
Truly life-changing stuff.
But that doesn’t give the full picture of its history.
For all those wonderful stories to happen in the first place, there had to be a system in place... one that was faithfully run by an army of employees.
David Yorath was one of those, working at the Sherman’s Pools building in St Mary Street, Cardiff, for a couple of years in the early 1960s.
He looked back with affection at a time in his life when he carried out, what he called, an important job.
His arrival at Sherman’s was a direct result of a TB diagnosis, which put his teaching plans on hold for two years after qualifying at Swansea University in 1958.
“To earn money in the meantime I applied for a job at Sherman’s Pools,” said 83-year-old David, of Cathays in Cardiff.
“They were worried that I was overqualified for the job but took a chance that I would stay there long enough to be of some help. After a couple of years with them, I resigned and took up a teaching post at Whitchurch Secondary Modern School.
“My wage had been £10 per week but when I handed in my notice the managing director offered me a rise of £2 a week, which I rejected, but I did carry on working for them on weekends as a part-time clerk.
“While there, I was employed as a claims clerk replying to punters’ letters when they thought they had a successful entry but had not been paid. In addition, if it was a busy week with many drawn matches, I and my fellow clerks were expected to go in on Saturdays and Sundays to oversee the part-time coupon markers. We received no extra pay for this. It was considered part of our duties. But they did provide a chicken dinner for us free of charge.”
David was very much aware of the significance of the operation.
“At that time, Football Pools were very important to many people and were regarded as a possible way to achieve wealth and a happy early retirement,” he said.
“Many people used quite complicated permutations or perms as they were known and part of my job was to learn how to check such entries. I enjoyed this and picked up the perms quite quickly.
“I was soon regarded as a bit of an expert on perms. My immediate boss – Alf Phillips – and I were the claims section of the office and two other men took over the duties of correspondence clerks and answered
“At that time, Football Pools were very important to many people and were regarded as a possible way to achieve wealth and a happy early retirement”
general queries from members of the public. The four of us had a pool of typists at our disposal, mainly copy typists, who sent out stock letters, and a few shorthand typists to whom we dictated the answers to the less common inquiries.
“I remember on one occasion a lady came into the office convinced by her friends and neighbours in Aberystwyth that she had won the first dividend on the treble chance.
“She hadn’t, but by the time we had convinced her, it was too late for her to get the bus back home. Alf took her home with him, after checking with his wife first, and saw her off the following morning. I find it hard to imagine something like that happening today.”
David eventually made it to teaching, later helped run the family general store and finished up his working life as a civil servant at Companies House in Whitchurch Road, Cardiff. But he looks back on his time at Sherman’s with affection.
“It was my first full-time job and I learned so much there,” he said. “I met more people than I would have done in my normal life. And I always felt that I was doing an important job as so many people looked to The Pools for their entertainment and possible means to wealth beyond them in their normal jobs.
“Looking back at my time there I have no regrets – except perhaps that I could have made all my correspondents millionaires!”
The Football Pools was launched with Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters, becoming a multi-million pound business which was once based in the Art Deco Littlewoods building on Edge Lane.
For more than 15 years the team has been working hard behind the scenes to grow the business digitally, inventing new games for new audiences while also remaining committed to its heritage. This is where The Pools comes in – a new website which offers players new games while still giving them the option to play the Classic pools game everybody knows and loves.
The new website includes Footie5, a free-to-play score predictor game, with a cash prize of £25,000 available every week. For more information visit www.footie5.com.