Football: X marks millionaire's spot

BETTING ON football must have begun years before John Moores saw and successfully exploited its potential. Early in the century, bets between individuals led on to bookmakers accepting wagers on single matches and, eventually, to making it possible to have one bet on the results of several games, at better odds. And so evolved "combination football betting" which in turn became known as fixed odds.

In the pre-Littlewoods days, fixed-odds bets were simply slips of paper on which the punters wrote the names of teams they wanted to combine as winners. The bookmaker then offered odds. The birth of the pools as we know them today is attributed to J Jervis Bernard, who organised a version of the Pari-mutuel and Totalisator. He issued coupons without reference to actual prizes. He said the the amount staked in total each week, less 10 per cent, would be distributed to the winners, proportionate to their stakes.

Bernard soon found that the profits failed to cover the cost of printing and postage. Slowly, though, the business prospered. Others saw its possibilities and Bernard sold out to David Cope Ltd. By the time of Bernard's death in 1954, the pools were the seventh-largest business in Britain, employing 23,000 people. It was mainly the determination of the Moores brothers, John and Cecil, that guaranteed such growth.

The first Littlewoods coupons were handed out at Manchester United's ground in the 1923-24 season. Of the 4,000 distributed, only 35 were returned, with bets totalling pounds 4 7s 6d. The payout was pounds 2 12s 0d. The season brought about losses of pounds 600. On one occasion in Hull 10,000 coupons were distributed and only one returned, causing two of the three partners to back out, leaving John Moores to go it alone. He was well rewarded, becoming a millionaire at 35.

One of the partners who, ironically, lost his nerve was Harry Askham who worked as a telegraphist in Manchester (as did Moores). When trying to set up the pools business he decided it was prudent not to use his own name for fear of losing his real job. He called himself Harry Littlewood, the surname being that of his aunt who had brought him up. The partners agreed to call the company Littlewoods.

Cecil Moores, who had worked in a bank, joined his brother and Littlewoods competed for supremacy, especially against Vernon Sangster, who erected a building opposite Aintree racecourse specifically designed for dealing with the pools. By 1928, Littlewoods had turned the corner. The total pool reached pounds 10,000, and just before the war it was pounds 400,000. The war saw the company give up their building in Edge Lane, Liverpool, for use as a munitions factory and office. The staff turned from clerks to manufacturers of parachutes, shells, boats, barrage balloons and small boats.

The fastest period of growth for the pools had come after an Act of Parliament in 1934 which became known as the "Pools Charter" and put no restriction on fixed-odds betting. The anti-betting campaigners completely failed to predict the power of the pools companies to influence people by using their big mailing lists to encourage customers to lobby their MPs. As soon as newspaper advertising was allowed, pools journalism followed, spreading publicity.

In 1936 the Football League reluctantly recognised gambling and accepted payment for their fixtures, which the pools companies had previously poached. The league's last attempt to remain aloof from betting was to scrap their fixtures, change them and keep them secret until the Thursday before the matches. That merely caused chaos for the clubs and failed to stop coupons coming out at the last minute. Football really only began to benefit after the setting up of the Football Trust in the 1970s, followed by sponsorship of the FA Cup by Littlewoods. With the reduction in betting duty, the Pools Promoters' Association has fought back against the National Lottery but, significantly, the record Littlewoods payout - pounds 2,924,622 - has not been bettered since November 1994, when the National Lottery began.