WHAT A TIME TO HAPPEN! Thousands watching the England match in Blackpool suffer a power cut

It couldn't have happened at a worse possible time - just after the start of the second half - and footie fans were quick to make their feelings clear on social media.

Rides also reportedly came to a brief stop at the Pleasure Beach, while pubs and clubs screening the huge match also went dark for a brief period.

Twitter user @ffgGB described the outage as "carnage", while Steve Cheeseborough said he lost power 48 minutes into England's 2-0 win, and got it back at 53 minutes - just before Dele Alli nodded the Three Lions into a comfortable lead.

Becky Latham said: "Casually watching the game .. all of a sudden there's a power cut.. the whole of Blackpool town centre have been cut as well! Talk about bad bloody timing. ...On a good note - 2 NIL"

And Gary Phillips said it was "unreal", adding: "It's the bloody quarter final"

In a statement, Electricity North West said: "A fault on the network caused the loss of power to 15,085 customers in Bispham and Blackpool at 4.05pm.

"All customers were restored by 4.13pm.

"We removed power supplies to an additional 235 customers in the area so our engineers could safely work to investigate the cause of the fault.

"All 235 customers were restored by 6.05pm."

Huge cheers replaced the dismays, however, as stunt planes left a distinct '2-0' mark in the sky above Blackpool Promenade shortly after England booked their semi-final date against either Russia or Croatia on Wednesday evening.

Thanks to Steph Sowersby for sending the picture in.