FORMER Wimbledon goalkeeper Hans Segers made payments into a Swiss bank account which coincided with matches his team lost, a jury heard yesterday. He paid #104,000 over a period of about a year, Winchester Crown Court heard.

Most crucially, in the last match of the 1993/94 season, against Everton, an unexpected victory by the Liverpool team saved them from relegation.

``This was certainly a marvellous match,'' said Mr David Calvert Smith, prosecuting in the case of three players and a Malaysian businessman who are charged with conspiring to fix the results of games in the English league.

At that time, one of Mr Segers's co-defendants was also playing for Wimbledon, counsel told the jury. Both Mr Segers and John Fashanu, now a presenter on ITV's Gladiators, were using the same London branch of a New York bank to deposit sums into separate Swiss accounts.

Two cash payments by Mr Fashanu over the period totalled #61,500.

Referring to the May 7, 1994, Wimbledon-Everton result, Mr Calvert Smith said there were a lot of telephone conversations between various defendants in the case.

In particular, these calls involved Mr Segers, Mr Fashanu, and Mr Heng Lim, a Malaysian businessman whom the Crown alleges acted as middleman between a Far Eastern betting syndicate and footballers playing for English teams who were engaged in conspiracies to fix matches.

The prosecuting counsel said: ``This was a match of crucial importance to Everton because it enabled them to stay up in the Premier Division.'' The outcome of this particular match caused considerable comment in the back pages of newspapers at the time.

In the dock with Mr Segers, Mr Fashanu and Mr Lim, is Bruce Grobbelaar, the former Liverpool and Southampton goalkeeper.

All deny that they were involved in a conspiracy to illegally affect the outcome of football matches. Mr Grobbelaar further denies corruptly receiving #2000 to influence or attempt to influence the outcome of games.

Examples of games lost by Wimbledon included October 2, 1993 - 4-0 to Leeds; October 25 - 2-0 to Ipswich; October 30 - 4-0 to Newcastle; January 1, 1994 - 3-0 Arsenal; January 11 - 2-1 to Sheffield Wednesday.

Payments into Mr Segers's Swiss account matched those games, as did some deposits of Mr Fashanu, the Crown alleges.

They included cash deposits by Mr Segers of between #6000 on October 14 and #11,000 on January 28, 1994.

The Crown highlighted a #19,000 deposit by Mr Segers into his Swiss bank account following the Everton victory over Wimbledon.

The Crown claims that Mr Segers's explanation to the police, that deposits to the Swiss account came from a Jersey bank where he had deposited sums of money following car crimes when he was a teenager in Holland, did not stand up.

It was more than coincidence that all the transfers via the London branch of a New York bank to a Swiss account ended as soon as the Sun newspaper suggested that Bruce Grobbelaar could be involved in a match-fixing scandal.

Not only did the money stop but so, too, did the ``multifarious'' telephone conversations that had gone on between the participants in the alleged conspiracy just prior to the newspaper's confrontation with Mr Grobbelaar at Gatwick airport, as he was about to fly out to Zimbabwe.

Mr Calvert Smith told the jury there was ample evidence to link Mr Lim, Mr Fashanu, and Mr Segers with conspiring to give or accept corrupt payments to fix matches. The frequency and timing of telephone calls - around key football matches where Wimbledon lost - proved they must have been discussing the same topic, he said.

He said that Mr Lim and Mr Fashanu were constantly in receipt of funds from Indonesia which had no apparent connection to the employment of either.

Mr Calvert Smith also insisted that it was significant that there was no contact between Mr Grobbelaar and other participants in the alleged scheme during the period he had been dropped by Liverpool until the period he was signed by Southampton. The trial resumes on Monday.