A retired tiler, whose first purchase after winning the National Lottery was a pool table, is now set to represent England as captain on the European stage.
Neil Jones, 59, who said he had just £13 in his pocket when he won £2.4m in 2010, has been chosen to skipper the England B1 team in the European Pool Championships next month.
The Stoke-on-Trent resident said he was “sobbing” after getting the call-up to lead the side.
His progress may have been sparked by the lucky lottery win, but it hasn’t come without hard work.
Mr Jones says “thousands of hours” of training, particularly during the COVID lockdowns, helped him hone his skills.
Having previously played snooker as a junior, he rose up through the ranks to become a regular county player, before his first England trial back in 2021.
He narrowly missed out, but continued playing and practising until he was asked to trial again earlier this year, where he impressed enough to be awarded his England colours during a Home Nations tournament.
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On his chance to be England captain during the championships in Malta, Mr Jones said: “I try to motivate the other boys [on the team], so when I was asked if I wanted to be captain for England, I couldn’t say no to that.
“I was sobbing, I couldn’t talk. If my dad had been here now, he would be in Malta with me.”
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On his rise through the pool ranks, he added: “Not long after we won, I went to the local pool hall and there was a friend of mine who I used to do karaoke and watch the football with.
“I picked a cue up, had a knock, and then I came back home and measured up our dining room so I could buy a decent pool table.
“I went out and bought a new pool table, so now when Coronation Street is on, I’m in here – so I get lots of practice.
“Winning the lottery allowed me to put those hours in. If I didn’t win, I wouldn’t have been able to buy the table, I wouldn’t have had the time – I’d still be on my hands and knees tiling.”
While he has had the support of partner Julie and his family, Mr Jones, who plays at The Plaza club in Fenton, says he wishes his late father was here to see his success.
He said: “My dad was so supportive of me. He was so proud.
“When he was in hospital, I used to tell him the county results every month and he’d say ‘you really want this don’t you? It will come’ and it did – it was really emotional.”
‘Money can’t buy you an England place’
Recalling the Iottery win back in 2010, he added: “I didn’t tell anyone at first, not until we went public.
“There were no words. I was checking the ticket for 45 minutes. It was all on Ceefax back then. Julie rang Camelot and they said, ‘are you sitting down? You’re the only winner and it’s £2.4m’.
“It took about 18 months to sink in. It was absolutely amazing, fantastic. It’s a cushion – when a bill comes through the door, you know you can pay it.
“It’s a completely different life, but anyone who knows me knows I’m grounded. Down the pool club, it’s not a big deal, no one mentions it.
“It’s about what you can achieve, because money can’t buy you an England place.”
Adding a final word on the upcoming tournament, Mr Jones said: “I didn’t have that much money left in the world when I won, and now I’m captaining my country.
“I can’t wait to fly out to Malta, put on that England shirt and lead the team out.”
The European Pool Championships are taking place from 1-8 November.
The former head of royal protection says he warned the Royal Family about Mohamed al Fayed’s reputation before Princess Diana took her sons on holiday with him.
The women say he raped and sexually assaulted them while they worked at the luxury department store, prowling the shop floor and “cherry-picking” women to be brought to his executive suite.
Now, Mr Davies says people were aware of the Egyptian businessman’s reputation as far back as the 1990s, and that he raised concerns about him to the Royal Family.
“This was a man who I would be concerned [about] if a relative of mine was going on holiday with him, let alone the future king and his brother and their mother, Princess Diana,” Dai Davies told Sky News.
In July 1997, a month before she died, Princess Diana went on holiday with Fayed and his wife to their residence in St Tropez.
She took the two young princes with her – a holiday Prince Harry described as “heaven” in his 2023 memoir Spare.
“I was horrified because I was aware of some of the allegations even then that were going around,” said Mr Davies.
“I was aware that he had tried very hard to ingratiate himself with the Royal Family and obviously knowing, as I did, the reputation he was alleged [to have] then, I was concerned, and I took the opportunity to inform the Royal Family.”
Mr Davies says he was told: “Her Majesty is aware.”
“The rest is history,” he said.
Buckingham Palace told Sky News it had no comment on the allegations.
Fulham ‘deeply disturbed’ by allegations
Fulham FC, a football club that was owned by Fayed between 1997 and 2013, has saidit is “deeply troubled” by the dozens of “disturbing” sexual abuse allegations against the businessman.
The Premier League club also said it is “in the process of establishing whether anyone at the club is or has been affected” by this alleged behaviour.
However, Gaute Haugenes, who managed the club’s women’s team between 2001 and 2003, told the BBC extra precautions were taken to protect female players from Fayed.
“We were aware he liked young, blonde girls. So we just made sure that situations couldn’t occur. We protected the players.”
The legal team involved in a civil claim against Harrods for allegedly failing to provide a safe system of work for its employees said they aimed to seek justice for the victims of a “vast web of abuse”.
Lily Allen says she had her children “for all the wrong reasons,” at a “high pressure” point in her career when she felt “overwhelmed”.
The singer and actress had her two daughters, Marnie, 12 and Ethel, 11, with her ex-husband Sam Cooper when she was in her mid-20s.
By the time she became a mum, she’d already had hit singles including Smile and The Fear, released two studio albums and received a Brit Award for best British female solo artist.
Speaking about motherhood on the BBC podcast Miss Me?, which Allen hosts with her long-time friend Miquita Oliver, she said: “I think I had children for all the wrong reasons, really.
“Because I was yearning for unconditional love, which I haven’t felt in my life since I was a child.”
The now 39-year-old star added: “And also, my career was at such high speed, high pressure, and I felt like very overwhelmed by what was happening. I just didn’t get much respite you know?
“And I felt like the only way to stop people hassling me was to say, ‘It’s not about me, actually this is about this other person that’s inside me’.
When asked by Oliver if it worked, Allen says: “Yeah, they did leave me alone. I don’t think I really understood what was happening, what I got myself into.”
The daughter of actor Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen, she went on to discuss her own childhood.
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“My mum, bless her, had children really early as well, and she really struggled. But she doesn’t really talk about the struggle. And so… She inadvertently gaslit me into thinking it was, you know, easy.
“You just sort of throw the kid over your shoulder and you get on with it.
“Her job was very static, and in one place and went to an office and mine wasn’t like that at all. It wasn’t easy. It just wasn’t easy.”
The ‘nasty scars’ caused by absent parents
Allen previously told the Radio Times podcast that while she loves her children, having them “ruined her career”.
She said her decision to prioritise them over her pop career was a decision she made so as not to inflict the “nasty scars” of being an “absent” parent onto them.
She also said the myth of having it all “really annoyed” as it simply was not true.
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Allen, whose younger brother is Game Of Thrones actor Alfie Allen, married Stranger Things star David Harbour in 2020.
Away from her music career, Allen has branched out into acting over the last few years, starring in two plays in London’s West End, and winning a role in Sky drama Dreamland last year.
An investigation has been launched after “Jail Starmer” graffiti was daubed on the window of an MP’s office.
The Met Police received an allegation of criminal damage on Saturday in relation to the incident at Clive Efford’s office in Eltham & Chislehurst, South London.
This is a new seat which was won by Labour at the general election, though in 2019 it was notionally Conservative.
On Friday night the window was painted with white graffiti which says “Jail Starmer”.
Sources told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby that an image of the vandalism has been circulating among Labour MPs’ WhatsApp groups this morning. However, Mr Efford has downplayed the incident.
There have been growing concerns about the safety of politicians in recent years, following the murders of Jo Cox and Sir David Amess.
MPs have described working in an increasingly hostile environment, with experiences ranging from death threats and abuse to attacks on their constituency offices and protests at their homes.
In a statement, the Met Police said: “On Saturday 21, September, police received an allegation of criminal damage to an office building in Westmount Road SE9.
“Graffiti had been daubed on the premises the previous day.
“An investigation has been launched and enquiries are ongoing.
“Anyone with information is asked to call 101 quoting CAD 2672/21Sep.”