THE thirty four years of hurt are over! Oh, happy day.

Uncork that bottle of Asti Spumante hidden at the back of the pan cupboard. Cover me in fruit and call me a fool.

Yep that's how I should be feeling. So why do I feel like the fatted calf when he heard that the prodigal son had breezed in to patch things up with dad?

Well call me flag burner but there were few features of England's performance which fostered the belief that they might be returning home with more than the bags that they took with them and a few designer pressies for the kids.

The single most glaring fault of this England team is that they give the ball away in midfield, as if they're hoping for a mention in the honours list for works of charity. And the most charitable of all is Paul Ince.

Surely a trip to the Palace cannot be far off for our snarling philanthropist. Indeed many uninformed viewers may now believe that his full name is "Paul Ince gives the ball away," so often was that phrase repeated on Saturday evening.

On the plus side, the two central defenders defended as if they were -- well, defenders. And Shearer scored.

Which means that his role as England captain and non-substitutable centre-forward is secure for all eternity or till hell freezes over, whichever is the sooner.

So on we go, our next hapless victims being Romania; a country that Kevin Keegan was unable to recall the name of on the day before we play football against them. (Good for international relations that, under the circumstances. It's not as if he had to point it out on a map or describe it's cultural heritage and places of interest. No, he just had to remember the name.)

Despite the pithy tone of this article, I care passionately about my national team unlike the Neanderthals who have run riot in Belgium (that's the country that you're in now Kev) this week and brought us to the brink of expulsion from the tournament.

They are no more representative of this country, and England fans in general, than Harold Shipman was representative of family doctors in general.

Perhaps we could provide them with a little country of their own. (We could get Kev to name it.)

P MILLIGAN, Crosshill Road, Blackburn