Cleaner Maureen Ford was unperturbed when husband Jack compared her quest to win The Argus Cross The Ball competition to hunting the Holy Grail.

But while he insisted she was batty and gave up marking his own crosses months ago, she remained certain that someone had to win the top prize.

Every week she would religiously put on her reading glasses, get out her magnifying glass and set to work marking 400 crosses on a photo from a Brighton and Hove Albion match.

And when Mrs Ford, 63, of Moulsecoomb, Brighton, discovered she had scooped £14,000, Jack had to eat his words.

Mrs Ford - who had left her job as a cleaner at Sycamore Court Nursing Home in Bevendean Road on the same day she heard she had won - said: "Jack got disheartened and gave up but I believed one day I may be a winner.

"When I got a call from The Argus asking me to phone them back, I didn't know what to expect. I passed the phone to my husband as I had my granddaughter Kayleigh on my lap.

"When we phoned back and were told we had won £14,000 I burst into tears. My stomach was full of butterflies and I just couldn't sleep a wink. I am still absolutely gobsmacked."

Mrs Ford gave up her cleaning job to look after six-month-old Kayleigh full-time so her daughter-in-law Liz could return to her bank job.

As she clutched the £14,000 cheque and fought back tears, she said: "I will make sure my family is looked after. I have one sister who is a widow and my son Lee, who was the first person I phoned, wants a new wide-screen TV."

The Cross the Ball competition is run by The Argus every week and goes up by £500 each time if nobody wins. The last winner, in October, also scooped £14,000.