Cue also lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth, in some quarters, over the depiction of our national emblem and the jingoism and fervour which infect these shores every other year.

Is it right that every automobile from here to Newton is festooned with little red and white flags? Is it too chav to bob down to T J Hughes and empty the shelves of tacky Three Lions gubbins before the Paraguay game?

For pity's sake, give me a break.

Released foreign criminals are roaming our streets, our once-proud National Health Service is on its knees . . . and the Government wants us to keep on working until we drop down dead like some Victorian factory slave.

For vast periods of time in this Land of Hope and Glory, there's precious little to cheer about or wave a flag in anger.

It will sooner be cheaper to sink your own oil well in the Arab Emirates than fill up your car with petrol - that's if it's really worthwhile sitting in your Mondeo with a full tank to crawl at 5mph down Knutsford Road each day.

Even our political masters would rather be playing croquet and groping the nearest secretary/rent boy/Cherie that comes to hand.

So what if for one month the whole of Warrington goes tub-thumping, chest-beating, Stella-swilling England bonkers?

Realistically - Rooney or no Rooney - the best we can hope for is another bout of heroic failure, when our boys repeatedly fail to slot the ball home from 12 yards against the likes of Brazil, Germany or Togo.

Until the Home Office sees sense and validates my one-man campaign to have Land of Hope and Glory installed as the English national anthem (that little ditty about the Queen is the UK's theme song) then I'll be content with a few rousing choruses of Three Lions and some rather fetching St George's Cross shorts.

Just this once, it would be nice to celebrate being English. With respect to our Celtic neighbours - not Welsh, Irish, or Scottish, or even British, but English. It's a sad state of affairs if we let old St George down once more.