BY the time this appears in print we will know whether the English football team has made the World Cup final for the first time since you know when.

(And if you don’t know when then you must have been abandoned on Kirsty Young’s desert island since the mid sixties.)

I was buried deep in the French countryside during much of the tournament this time, but in a gite with a large TV screen where the FR1 channel screened pretty well every match.

I watched in solitary splendour as my holiday companion would pop a head in only occasionally to make a shrewd sporting observation like: “Is the man in the yellow shirt the referee?” And, once, famously: “Are Scotland out yet?”

But before I left on holiday, the Scottish and English media were still fixated by an obsessional interest as to whether homegrown footy fans would be supporting their nearest neighbour’s endeavours or not. A question which refuses to go away no matter how tedious.

Poor Andy Murray still gets pelters for joking at a previous World Cup that he would be supporting anyone but England. He thought it was a bit of joshing, but the English media just never let him forget it.

Yet, despite being a time-served member of the Tartan Army, I did find myself supporting England this time around.

This was partly because they seemed shorn of the self-regarding, superstar divos and braggarts of previous teams. Many of them came up the hard way via profoundly unfashionable clubs. (A snarling John Terry succeeded by a cheery Harry Kane as captain didn’t hurt either.)

Partly because they represented a multi-coloured, multi-cultural kind of England a million miles from the racist eejits of the English Defence League and its ilk.

And partly because they were being coached by a pleasant and thoughtful young manager who never allowed himself to be goaded into pre-match hubris by the press pack.

And it is the latter who give so many Scots pause for thought when watching England.

Half a century and more of serial reminiscences about the time they lifted the trophy have caused more than the odd tartan bunnet to get flung at the TV/radio. So there has been a certain trepidation that if Gareth Southgate’s boys did the deed again, we were in for another few decades bragging rights.

But, in fairness, should our own team have ever scaled such dizzy sporting heights, I somehow doubt the Scottish nation would have been overcome by a shy disinclination to mention the triumph. More likely we’d be celebrating every hour, on the hour.

Sadly, I don’t expect to live long enough to see this particular prediction put to the test.