FOR A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS

Last updated : 30 December 2004 By editor

‘Two decades after the rubber-legs act in Rome, a decade after the allegations of match-fixing and two years after his financial ruin, the so-called clown prince of English football has wound up coaching a team on the southern tip of Africa, broke, unrepentant and defiant. "The Britons bankrupted me. I came to their country with £10 in my pocket and they gave me £1 back. But in between I had one hell of a ride."

‘The sense of victimhood is unmistakable. He is the victim of Ian Smith's Rhodesia which made him an army corporal in a doomed bush war against Robert Mugabe's guerrillas in the 1970s: "It was a struggle to survive." The victim of a supposed friend, Chris Vincent, who secretly videotaped their conversations about match-fixing: "I went into business with an arsehole." The victim of a vindictive newspaper, the Sun, which splashed on the allegations and defended them in an epic, eight-year legal battle: "I wouldn't even wipe my fucking arse with it." The victim of a legal lottery whereby juries refused to convict him and he won a libel award only for judges to overturn everything and ruin him: "You win in the court of law and yet they decide that you have to pay the opposition."


‘Charged with conspiracy to corrupt and match-fixing, he was tried in 1997 alongside the former Wimbledon goalkeeper, Hans Segers, the former Aston Villa striker, John Fashanu, and a Malaysian businessman, Heng Suan Lim. Pleading innocence, he claimed he was attempting to obtain evidence of wrongdoing from Vincent before going to the police. His performance was as audacious as in any game, said commentators. The jury failed to reach a verdict and a retrial was ordered but again the jury could not decide. All four were acquitted and in 1999 the Zimbabwean went on to win an £85,000 libel award from a jury which plainly did not like the Sun.


‘Two years later the court of appeal ruled that the tabloid had suffered a miscarriage of justice and overturned the award. Grobbelaar went to the House of Lords, which reinstated the jury verdict but slashed his damages to £1 and ordered him to pay the Sun's huge legal costs. The law lords were not convinced he kept his part of the bargain and let in goals but said he undermined the integrity of the game by acting "in a way in which no decent or honest footballer would act".


‘Pursued by the Sun's trustees, earlier this year he was officially declared bankrupt over his failure to pay the tabloid £500,000 in legal costs. "I haven't any money. Anything I'd earn in England they'd take. Here in South Africa I'm scrimping." With his houses in his estranged wife's name, could he not try to negotiate an out-of-court settlement with the Sun? A growl. "I don't talk to scum." Millionaire or pauper, he is the same person, he says, adding solemnly: "Greed is the worst thing."’