The newspaper's northern news editor, Peter Sherlock, told the High Court in London that Mr Grobbelaar's own admissions were "absolutely damning".

And he said the response of the 41-year-old Zimbabwean, when confronted with the newspaper's allegations, had been "totally unsatisfactory".

Mr Grobbelaar is suing the newspaper for libel over a series of articles published in 1994, which accused him 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 accidentally making a "sensational" save against Manchester United.

'Extremely evasive'

Mr Sherlock supervised The Sun's investigation, which began after a former friend of Mr Grobbelaar's, Chris Vincent, helped the newspaper secretly videotape him talking about fixing matches to benefit a Far Eastern betting syndicate.

On Tuesday Mr Sherlock told the court that Mr Grobbelaar's reaction to the claims had been "extremely evasive".

"It reinforced my belief, which I held throughout the story, that Bruce Grobbelaar had something to hide - here was a man who had been caught out," he said.

"He was chopping and changing his story all the time."

Mr Sherlock, who had assigned two reporters to the story, said he had told them to proceed with "extreme caution".

"It was a story that had to be checked out, starting with a zero point where we would publish nothing," he said.

'Anxious to be fair'

The corroboration of Mr Vincent's story came through the videotapes, said Mr Sherlock, and concluded, six days before publication, with Mr Grobbelaar accepting a �2,000 payment from Mr Vincent.

Mr Grobbelaar has said he made the comments on the tapes only to gather evidence of corruption against Mr Vincent.

But Mr Sherlock said that if Mr Grobbelaar had told his reporters, when confronted, that he would pass the money on to the FA and expose Mr Vincent as corrupt, the story would not have been run "under any circumstances".

"We were anxious to be extremely fair to Mr Grobbelaar...but he had no logical or legal explanation for his activities," he said.

Punitive damages

The stories led to a court case in November 1997, in which 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.

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

His case against The Sun includes a claim for punitive exemplary damages because he alleges that the newspaper published the story knowing it was false, or not caring if it was or not.

The newspaper denies libel, claiming justification and qualified privilege.