The first wave of an expected 70,000 England fans descended on Marseille on Thursday and wasted no time in starting three days of drinking and singing ahead of Saturday's Euro 2016 match against Russia.
Noisy and boisterous, bare-chested and full of lager and bravado, they draped the flags around the Queen Victoria "British pub" and roared out their songs of defiance in the time-honoured manner of "England Away", just as they had in the same port-side bars 18 years ago.
Then, building up to their team's opening game of the 1998 World Cup, a similarly good-natured scene quickly turned into what became some of the worst and most sustained violence ever seen at a major soccer tournament.
The early exchanges were between England supporters and a handful of Tunisia fans, swiftly followed by the involvement of French riot police as tear gas and batons took on flying bottles and chairs.
As dusk fell those few locals had grown into a massive mob as thousands of youths from the city's less glamorous quarters decided they would not take the invasion lying down and proceeded to hunt for and attack isolated England fans, one of whom was lucky to survive after having his throat cut.