ALMOST the entire population of a North-East village will be celebrating with champagne today after their remarkable syndicate scooped a big National Lottery prize.

The sleepy village of Stainton, near Middlesbrough, has been stunned after no less than 84 residents saw their numbers come up on Saturday's draw.

The syndicate, reckoned to be the biggest ever to win a substantial prize in the draw, matched five numbers and the bonus ball - enough to net £86,100 for the friends and neighbours.

The syndicate was pulled together by newsagent Alan Heppell, who has run the village store on Hemlington Road with his wife for the past five years.

Last night, he was out celebrating his good fortune over a pint at the village local, the Stainton Hotel, along with several of the other lucky Lottery winners.

"The village has quite a community spirit and there is always a good crowd at the shop and the pub," he said.

Alan started the syndicate last February and hit on the bright idea of letting customers add their £1 a week to their paper bill.

Membership grew quickly and, using similar permutations of numbers every week, they soon clocked up a kitty of around £900 and were trying to work out ways of dividing the prize fund at Christmas.

The first Alan knew of their big win was over the Lotto terminal which advised him to get in touch with Camelot. "It was early on Sunday morning," he said.

"I always get a member of the syndicate to check the numbers with me and we realised it was a fairly big win. So we quickly put the ticket in the safe and tried to get on with the mundane business of selling the Sunday papers."

With some people having several shares in the syndicate, each member is expected to get about £780.

They will gather at the shop to collect their winnings - and a glass of champagne - later this morning.