ENGLAND won the World Cup in 1966. I know that because somebody told me about it once. Scotland marked the achievement by going down to Wembley and reminding them that their hard-won global supremacy didn't automatically mean that they were the best team on the island.

Some 50 years on, these two Auld Enemies are scheduled to renew acquaintances in the qualifying campaign for the World Cup 2018 in Russia. No team should ever be beaten going in to a football match, and with Gordon Strachan in charge, Scotland surely won't be. But there are signs that England are again mustering a squad of players capable of jousting for the major honours on the world stage, and little to suggest that their friends in the north will be able to stage a repeat performance of their 1967 heroics.

England will find the conditions in France next summer comfortable - London is as southerly as Paris - and will be followed by a large travelling support. Moreover, viewers of Match of the Day each week will notice an ever-increasing number of talented young English players capable of competing amongst the highly-paid world suuperstars at the sharp end of the Premiership. Two seasons back I watched an England Under-21 side demolish their Scottish counterparts at Bramall Lane and the fortunes of the respective groups of players since then has become even more marked.

John Stones and Ross Barkley have become mainstays at Everton, benefiting from regular first team football at a club who have used their new-found TV money to resist the advances of richer suitors. Raheem Sterling, arguably the most electric talent of the bunch, is now mixing it at Manchester City having nearly inspired Liverpool to the title. Nathaniel Chalobah, then of Chelsea, has quietly moved on-loan to Rafa Benitez's Lazio, where he is getting the kind of first team football at an exalted continental level which Ryan Gauld can only dream of.

There are others besides. Eric Dier, Gauld's one time-team-mate at Sporting in Lisbon, is holding down a holding role at Tottenham Hotspur, while Dele Alli pulls up trees as a modern, all-purpose midfielder alongside him and Harry Kane an eye-catching addition to the striking ranks. Chris Smalling is a genuine bright spark in the Louis van Gaal malaise at Manchester United, while his team-mate Wayne Rooney, goalkeeper Joe Hart and James Milner could provide some experience. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott are already operating at a high level and Jack Wilshere could back into consideration too. Roy Hodgson is a canny old coach who is gradually pulling things in the right direction. Qualification for 2016, as usual, was a doddle.

While you must always be wary of the hype machine in the Premier League in England, this emerging generation may yet prove to be England's golden one. The summer of 2016 may be too soon for them, and a tough looking group including that other product of the Premiership academies, Gareth Bale, doesn't exactly help their cause. But make no mistake: the English are coming. And Scotland will have to get their act together if they are not to bear the brunt of it in qualifying for World Cup 2018.