Football's coming gnome at a superstore near Oxford where staff are getting ready for World Cup fever.

World Cup garden gnomes are selling fast at Asda stores across the country, and they are proving a massive hit with customers at the London Road store in Wheatley.

The one-foot tall gnomes come in two versions, one holding a ball and one standing on a ball, and they wear England colours.

The figures cost £5 and more than 18,000 have been sold so far at Asda stores across the country.

Wheatley store manager Alan MacKintosh said: "These terracotta gnomes are absolutely flying out of the store and they could easily sell out before the start of the World Cup.

"I'm Scottish, so I won't stand next to them for too long, but I'm hoping England make it to the final, because it will keep sales going of all our World Cup novelty items."

England fans may want to travel to Germany with the gnomes, as the Germans claim they invented the gnome in 1872.

Experts say some 25 million of the glazed ceramic men now inhabit German living rooms and perfectly manicured flower beds.

Last July, Ickford company gnomesforyou.com did a roaring trade after it provided 30 of the little fellows for reality TV show Big Brother.