Debbie Grobbelaar, an air hostess and mother-of-two, said her husband was "naive" and let Mr Vincent take over his life.

In October 1994 Mr Vincent helped the newspaper secretly record the former Liverpool and Southampton keeper as he talked about fixing matches to benefit a Far Eastern betting syndicate.

When the paper splashed the allegations across its front and back pages the following month, Mr Grobbelaar said he had been tricked.

In November 1997 Mr Grobbelaar and three co-defendants - former Wimbledon players Hans Segers and John Fashanu and Malaysian businessman Heng Suan Lim - were acquitted of match-fixing at Winchester Crown Court.

'I never fixed matches'

Mr Grobbelaar, 41, has maintained throughout he only gave advice on the possible outcome of games and did not fix matches.

He said he only made the match-fixing comments to Mr Vincent to string him along and said he planned to expose his "friend" to the authorities.

Grobbelaar has admitted his plan to expose Mr Vincent alone was "the worst decision of my life".

The Sun accused Grobbelaar of taking �40,000 to make sure Liverpool lost to Newcastle in 1993.

It also claimed he blew his chance of making �125,000 by making an "accidental" save against Manchester United.

The newspaper denies libel, claiming justification and qualified privilege.

Doomed game park project

Mrs Grobbelaar said she did not like Mr Vincent and blamed him for persuading her husband to pour thousands of pounds into an unsuccessful African game park.

She said: "I got very worried. I used to get angry and it obviously caused a lot of problems between Bruce and myself as this man was taking over our lives and I couldn't find out what was going on."

Mrs Grobbelaar said her husband, who served in the army during the Rhodesian civil war in the late 1970s, acted differently when he was in Mr Vincent's company and frequently swore.

"He seemed to put on this macho image as though he was back in the bush. He talked in this jargon, occasionally smoked - which I've never seen him do before - and have a few drinks," she said.

She said her husband became like Mr Vincent's "private expense account".

When the "bubble burst" and the game park project collapsed Bruce was "devastated", she said.

'Extraordinary' goalkeeper

Cross-examined by George Carman QC, for The Sun, Mrs Grobbelaar said her husband kept thousands of pounds in cash in his sock drawer at their home in Heswall, Merseyside.

Mr Carman asked why the money, which Mr Grobbelaar said had come from legitimate engagements overseas, had not gone into the bank to earn interest.

Mrs Grobbelaar: "I didn't think it was unusual to have this sort of money in my house as a float ... we didn't have a safe, we kept all our jewellery and his medals there as well."

The former Arsenal and Scotland goalkeeper Bob Wilson, now a TV presenter, told the court Mr Grobbelaar's performances in goal for Liverpool were "extraordinary".

He said: "In my view he made every other goalkeeper in the British Isles consider whether they were doing enough in their role of goalkeeper."

Mr Wilson said he had not seen anything to suggest Grobbelaar had ever tried to "throw" a game.

The hearing continues.