The football pools - mass investment
Thinking Allowed
BBC
4.4 • 997 Ratings
🗓️ 28 December 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Betting and Investment: Laurie Taylor explores the connections and the differences between two apparently very different phenomena - the football pools and the stock market.
He's joined by Keith Laybourn, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Huddersfield, who charts the rise and fall of the football pools over the 20th century. In its heyday, millions of working class people hoped for a life-changing jackpot cheque presented by a sporting personality and stories of big wins punctuated the news. So what led to a flutter on the pools falling out of favour?
And Amy Edwards, lecturer of Modern British History at the University of Bristol, asks ‘are we rich yet?’ in a study which considers the way in which a growing number of British people engaged in stock market investment as financial markets became part of daily life from the 1980s following the privatisation of British Telecom. Did this development take investment away from the oak-panelled world of the City and give the wider public a genuine stake in popular capitalism?
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:36.6 | This is a Thinking Loud Podcasts from the BBC, and for more details and much, much more about |
| 0:42.4 | thinking aloud, go to our website at BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:47.0 | Hello, my very first paid job was in the Littlewood's mail order warehouse in Liverpool. |
| 0:54.0 | It didn't really call for any great expertise, only an ability to climb up and down |
| 0:58.0 | ladders in search of the requested items, pressure cookers, vacuum cleaners, toasters and hearthruggs. But my parents were |
| 1:06.0 | consoled by the fact that it was at least steady work. For at that time the very |
| 1:10.8 | name Littlewoods was a guarantee of long-term security. After all this was a |
| 1:15.6 | mail-order business built on the successes of Littlewood's pools and didn't |
| 1:20.8 | everyone at that time play the pools, |
| 1:23.0 | Little Woods or Vernon's or Zetters, |
| 1:25.5 | and didn't everyone dream of winning up to 75,000 pounds |
| 1:30.0 | for guessing the eight draws in next Saturday's football matches. |
| 1:34.3 | Part of McLaughlin 4, Falkirk 3, |
| 1:38.3 | Hibernian 1, Kilmarnock 2, Aberdeen- Nill, Partic Thistle, 3. |
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