England beat Columbia to progress at France '98 on this day.

England played a World Cup match against Colombia on this day in 1998. It was our third and last Group G fixture at the French finals and we needed just a point to make it into the Second Round.

A 24 million TV audience at home and several thousand England fans inside the Stade Felix-Bollaert in Lens saw England put on their best performance of the tournament so far.

There were two goals to savour in the first half-hour and for several minutes after David Beckham’s wonderful free-kick there was joy unconfined as fans danced the conga along the front of the stands.

After two impressive substitute appearances, Michael Owen started this time and certainly didn’t let his coach or his country down. When he speared in a cross, Colombia’s Bermudez could only direct his headed clearance to Darren Anderton and the Spurs winger struck a rising shot that flew past Mondragon’s left hand.

Nine minutes later a foul by Preciado on Ince presented Beckham with a mouth-watering free-kick some 25 yards out.

The ball cleared the Colombian ‘wall’ and was in the back of the net before the ‘keeper could scamper across.

2-0 to England, and in the end it could have been six.