He was told he had won $750,000 in Soccerpools.

Mr McGirr thought about that news for a while, then said quietly, "How much?".

Mr Miller, who was executive consultant to Australian Soccerpools Pty Ltd, told Mr McGirr that he had won the largest second-division Soccerpools prize in the world.

Since there had been no first-division winner for five weeks, the prize had gone to a jackpot and was awarded to the second-division winner.

Mr McGirr, who had been working in the garden when the Soccerpools executives and media representatives arrived, recovered his composure enough to murmur, "Dear, oh, dear."

His wife of 45 years, Mavis, was more voluble.

"We knew we had won something when the Soccerpools people contacted us, but we thought it would be no more than a few thousand," she said.

"This is amazing."

Mr and Mrs McGirr had lived in their Ainslie home throughout their married lives.

At the time, they had eight children whose ages ranged from 25 to 43, and 15 grandchildren.

Mr McGirr said most of the money would go to his children.

"At our time of life money is not so important," he said. "We will use it to help our children."

Mr McGirr owned a butcher shop in Civic and had retired only four years prior.

He said that he entered the various pools regularly.

He submitted four Soccerpools coupons, each with eight games, every week.

He did not have a detailed system, but chose numbers randomly "to get a good spread" and used the same numbers over a long period.

"It stands to reason; the law of averages says that if you stick with the same numbers all the time they must come up eventually," he said.

The winning numbers were 2, 15,17, 23, 34, 35 and the supplementary 21. Mr McGirr's entry had them all except 15.

The third dividend was $475.05, the fourth $14.15 and the fifth $6.75.

See trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122531083/13748799