AT LAST, after eight long years in an international wilderness, the day arrives - when England goes for glory in the World Cup Finals.

This momentous Monday, hope and anticipation crackle like lightning in the air across the county. The nation was at a standstill as, finally, England's campaign commenced.

Sadly, this immense occasion - the culmination of all those years of waiting, of the tension-filled build-up and, for the English, the first course of a football feast - is blighted by an overture of shameful hooliganism by a minority of so-called fans in Marseilles.

There will, among the millions of decent fans today glued to every kick of the ball in their team's opening clash with Tunisia, be little sympathy for the louts clobbered and collared by the French police. Rather, there will only be hope that they are punished and dealt with - in Britain as well as in France - so severely that the disgrace they cast upon their country is purged and such bad behaviour deterred for good.

Yet though the scum have stained this day, how their drunken imbecility might be best dispensed with would be for today's so-called Idle Monday, when the country stopped work to watch the match in Marseilles, to be the evident start of the victory of 1998 - so that any hooliganism is relegated by England's progress to insignificance.

Those who remember the ecstasy of 1966 and such brave World Cup battles afterwards as those in Mexico and Italy will know how the escalating quest for glory grabs the nation's hearts and minds.

Let today, then, become the memorable Monday when that spirit was set alight again.

A generation ago, the imperturbable national team manager Alf Ramsey coolly predicted England would win the World Cup in 1966. Today, coach Glenn Hoddle says they can this time, too.

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