Triumphant Harry Redknapp will keep weaving his magic

As they sat in Portsmouth's Wembley dressing room before the FA Cup Final, Harry Redknapp sidled up to Kanu and offered the same pre-match exhortation he always gives to his favourite beanpole. "Go on, King. Go out there and do your stuff, King. Do the magic. You're the best..."

Harry's same old recipe; take one forgotten hero no one will touch with a bargepole, keep stirring to remind him how great he still is and then watch him sizzle. So it was that three hours later in the same dressing room, King Kanu was to be found beaming about his winning goal, his winner's medal, his man of the match award and laughing at Prince 'Arry: "Hey, gaffer, gaffer, you give me a three-year contract now!"

Yes, the Nigerian had done the magic - if magic is rolling a ball down your shin and still somehow making it plop apologetically into the net from three yards - but he marvelled at Redknapp's witchcraft too. "Nobody knows how he does it but he tends to bring the best out of the players," said Kanu after the 1-0 win over Cardiff. "He tells you what you want to hear, then you want to go out there and do the best for him. He's somebody special."

No arguments. After a traumatic season for him, the 126th Cup final was Harry's Game, a great character's reward for 25 years of adding so much merriment to the nation's sporting life.

For him, it was a lovely throwback, recalling the days when the showpiece really did mean the world to two sets of fans. And best of all, he grinned, what about his pinstripe suit? Not exactly Arsene Wenger chic, but not bad, eh? "Romford market," he assured us.

He knows his market does Henry James Redknapp. He had his audience in stitches assessing his bargain buys. David 'Calamity' James? "People said 'Are you mad?'" Ditto, the emotionally fragile Sol Campbell. "Must be off your rocker buying him." West Brom reject Kanu? "He's 47, isn't he?" Hermann Hreidarsson? "Holds the world record for being relegated most times."