STRETCHING A POINT ... skipper Steven Gerrard limbers up alongside Scott Parker

ANGLO-FRENCH hostilities broke out a day early here in Donetsk yesterday.

It was sparked by a mickey-taking French reporter sitting at the back of a packed England Press conference.

The journalist asked Roy Hodgson and Steven Gerrard how it was possible for England to still call themselves a serious footballing nation when they have not won a major tournament since 1966.

England skipper Gerrard then followed the historic example of the English archers at Agincourt who flicked a communal V-sign at their French counterparts on that famous day in 1415.

This was to show they still had the use of their bow-drawing index fingers — fingers the French normally cut off when they took prisoners.

Gerrard responded in kind when he promised England would be out to ram taunts like that down French throats when England launch their Euro 2012 campaign against Laurent Blanc’s side at the Donbass Arena this evening.

Gerrard, bristling, said: “That sort of thing is all the motivation we need.

“We know we have our critics and we know we have under-performed for far too long.

“But we also know we are better than our results at the last few major tournaments suggest.

“I have belief in myself and the players. I know how they can perform when they get it right, I see it week-in, week-out in the Premier League.

“I think one tournament very soon it will click and we will get that bit of luck that you always need.

“Then we will prove an awful lot of people wrong — especially that bloke at the back today.”

You could see what was going through the Liverpool star’s mind.

That he could just about put up with critics of the game back home but he certainly wasn’t going to stand for foreigners putting the knife in — especially that lot over the other side of the channel.

He had already been hurt badly by France at the opening game of Euro 2004 when two late Zinedine Zidane goals saw England go down 2-1.

The winner came from the spot in added time after Gerrard played a back-pass straight to Thierry Henry, who was then flattened by David James.