Wigan man wins big on football accumulator

Grandad Anthony, 58, will use his winnings to pay for a family holiday to Cyprus and has treated his long-suffering wife Louise to a new dress for when they go to the races and championship boxing.

The father-of-five, who drives a wagon transporting sewage converted for use on farms, who beat the odds of 2,120/1 joked: “You could say where there’s muck there’s brass.”

Anthony - a fan of both Latics and Wigan Warriors – has regularly filled in his “bonus” accumulator coupon at a Betfred shop at Warrington Road, Platt Bridge.

But on Saturday his predictions came true after all his teams won – but not without high drama at Wycombe who eventually beat Carlisle 4-3 with two injury time goals.

He had Manchester United to beat Huddersfield at odds of 1/6 and, also in the Premier League, Bournemouth to beat Stoke at evens. In the Championship, he predicted that Millwall would beat Reading (2/1), he thought Preston would triumph at home against Hull (6/5) and that Fulham would beat Nottingham Forest (4/5).

He also correctly predicted Notts County would beat Crewe at 4/5, Scunthorpe to emerge victorious over Fleetwood (7/4) and Yeovil to overcome Cambridge United also at odds of 7/4.

In Scotland, Anthony got it right that Aberdeen would beat Hamilton (8/15) and Hearts would win at home against St Johnstone at 5/6.

But as he ticked off his once in a lifetime list while watching TV at home at Egerton Street, Abram, Anthony was sweating over just what was going on at the Adams Park stadium in League Two match between Wycombe and Carlisle where he had the home side at evens to win.

It wasn’t looking good with Wycombe down to 10 men after Luke O’Nein was sent off but although being 250/1 in play to win they equalized through Paris Cowan-Hall three minutes into additional time.

Anthony thought it was all over because he needed a Wycombe win for his bet to stand and was ready for screwing up his betting slip, but amazingly up popped Wycombe’s Marcus Bean to volley the winner in the 96th minute!

“I just couldn’t believe it,” said Anthony. “After all these years of doing this bet I knew I’d win it one day.”

He immediately rang Louise, who works as a beauty consultant at Debenhams in Wigan, and she couldn’t believe it either, having had so many “hard luck” calls from her sports-mad hubby.

Louise, 47, said: “I’m absolutely thrilled. He’s always ringing me up to say he’s nearly won.

“I got him to the Trafford Centre to get me a new dress for the races at Wolverhampton and we’re going to the Chris Eubank fight against George Groves at the Manchester Arena.

Anthony added: “I won once before in 2015, picking up £5,000. I am usually very close with one or two teams letting me down but not on Saturday.

“I was relaxing, watching the racing on TV and then flicking over to see how the football was going. Then, near the end, checking off the results. I just couldn’t believe what was happening at Wycombe. For them to score twice, both in injury time, having gone behind and with ten men too, was incredible.”

So what is Anthony’s top tip? He said: “I spend about half an hour studying the various league tables and basically go with the team in the top half to beat club in the bottom half. That’s what I did last Saturday and it’s amazing I won so much from just a £5 bet.”