Triumphant Harry Redknapp will keep weaving his magic

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."

But each had been great, responding to Redknapp's mixture of respect for their ability and trust in their desire to prove they still had it. The result? First an escape from relegation, then Pompey's first Cup final win for 69 years. Yes, even his Southampton treachery might be forgiven now. Almost.

And while the most unfeasible plotline of Championship battlers lifting the Cup was scuppered thanks to Cardiff keeper Peter Enckelman's spilled gift to the King, Redknapp hoped the day had marked a kind of rebirth for the Cup showpiece. His rejuvenated heroes and foreign legions - Pompey were represented by nine countries - offered the event its first romantic winners' name since Wimbledon 20 years ago.

Beyond that, though, Redknapp had provided domestic football with a great service, not only by proving that the big four's stranglehold could be broken but also that you don't have to be either Alex Ferguson or a garlanded foreign coach to successfully plot such a triumph.

Harry showed you can be a footballing alchemist by using enterprise, intelligence and man management, by knowing football and footballers.

He chastised the journalist who'd suggested that, because of his concerns over his wife Sandra after the death of her twin sister Pat Lampard, he might quit after the final. "Never entered my mind," he boomed. "I don't know what I'd do without football."

And what would football do without Harry? We left him trying to work out whether a three-year contract for Kanu might mean he'd have the first 50-year-old since Stanley Matthews was at large.