Socceroo Archie strikes back with grand five Down Under

TV View: We've had a bit of a soft spot for Archie Thompson since 2001. That was the year Australia beat American Samoa 31-0 in a World Cup qualifier and Archie suggested he knew where the goal was by helping himself to 13 of his country's scores.

Granted, at the time we probably failed to give Archie enough credit, questioning, as we did, the solidity of the American Samoan back four, the effectiveness of their offside trap and the ability of their goalkeeper, Nicky Salapu.

But more recent footballing events, closer to home (we're reluctant to mention the war, but (hint) think of the legendary quarterback Dan Marino and just change one of the letters in his name), have led to a touch of revisionism on our part, so much so we'll never again sniff at a meaty victory over minnows.

The Archie soft spot developed when we heard that he was dropped for Australia's next game, against Fiji, which left us wondering what more he could do to impress the coach? Emile Heskey once went in or around 16 years without scoring a goal, but still kept his place in the Liverpool team - and the England squad.

What happened Archie just proved to us your best isn't always good enough, whatever they say. We've often thought about him, wondered if he'd given up football and taken up, say, surfing.

But happily he's stuck at it, as we discovered yesterday morning when we tuned in to Sky Sport's live coverage of the Australian Grand Final between Melbourne Victory and Adelaide United.

Studio expert John Salako promised us the grandest of Grand Finals, and while he acknowledged that Melbourne were favourites he had a hunch there'd be an upset.

"Adelaide are resilient, a strong side, they might think their name is on the cup, Melbourne might be over confident," he said.

By half-time Adelaide were 3-0 down and their captain had been sent off, which, we felt, was a sign their name might not, after all, be on the cup. (And there wasn't much their coach, John Kosmina, could do about it - he had to watch the game from the stands after being given a five-match touchline ban for questioning a referee's parentage the week before).

"It's not a particularly dirty challenge," co-commentator Robbie Slater had said when Ross Aloisi elbowed Grant Brebner so hard Grant's head almost flew out of the little opening in the roof of the Telstra Dome.

(Note: the roof was partly closed to keep out the 38 degrees heat. And there's us closing any aperture we find to keep in the heat).

"Game over?" Clare Tomlinson asked Salako. "Well . . . ." he said. We took that as a yes.

Second half. Three more goals. Final score? 6-0 to Melbourne. But, and it's a ginormous BUT, who got the goals? Before the game our Archie had predicted he'd score three. He was way off the mark: he got five. "Everything just seemed to go in," he beamed. The truth was, everything did go in.

Yes, Adelaide defended much as our boys did against Cyprus a couple of months back, but who cares?

Archie's had a long career (he's 28 now), he's played for a wacky array of clubs - including Gippsland Falcons and the fabulously monikered Marconi Stallions, not to mention a two-game spell with PSV Eindhoven - but in the only two games we know about he's scored 18 goals. That soft spot just gets softer.

To be honest, the only reason we tuned in to the Australian Grand Final was because we'd been so bored watching Manchester United v Reading on the BBC the evening before we needed our footballing faith rekindled.

In an attempt to show just how much they respect the grand auld lady of cup competitions, aka the FA Cup, United and Reading fielded their second teams, unlike the BBC, who had Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen, Alan Shearer, Ian "Wrightie" Wright, "Motty" Motson and "Lawro" Lawrenson on duty.

So dull was the fare, Motty resorted to recalling the time, 25 years ago, Robert Maxwell threatened to merge Reading with loathed neighbours Oxford United. Thames Valley Royals, he planned on calling them. "If you knew the history of both," said Lawro, "it'd be like putting King Herrod in charge of Mothercare".

That, really, was as entertaining as it got. "I'm looking forward to the replay, I tell you that much," said Hansen at the end, speaking for no one but himself.

And Wrightie? "Steve Coppell's not no mug," he'd told us. The only mugs, in fact, were those of us who'd wasted 90 minutes plus watching that muck.

Now, if United had our Archie up front . . .