A group of football fanatics from York today set off on a 10-hour journey to France to watch "England thrash Colombia".

And in true World Cup spirit, the group of four former students have transformed their car into a moving St George's flag, bought a compilation album of the best football anthems to play on the way, and will paint their faces to watch the match tomorrow.

Driver Dan Rutstein, a former student at York University, said: "The match is at Lens - the nearest to England - so we decided it would be a great idea to go.

"And then, because we had decided to make the effort to go to the World Cup, we thought we might as well do it in style and paint the car as well as our faces.

"The car we're going in is from Switzerland so it's left-hand drive so it should feel quite at home in France."

Dan added that he thinks England will win 3-1, and will be celebrating "big style" when they do.

"We haven't got tickets for the actual match, but we're going to watch it on one of the big screens. The atmosphere should be brilliant."

Thousands of England fans were today continuing to arrive in northern France as local authorities prepared to turn the venue of Lens into a town under siege.

As an expected 20,000-plus English started to pour in to the area, local authorities said there would be an extra 1,300 police on hand to contain the situation.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.