ITV's FA Cup own goal

ITV has apologised after millions of viewers missed the winning goal in Everton's FA Cup extra-time victory over Liverpool on Wednesday night because the network had switched to an ad break.

While viewers, who had watched almost two hours of dross football, watched ads for FA Cup sonsors EON and Tic Tac mints, 19-year-old Dan Gosling was scoring a dramatic 118th-minute goal to put Everton into the fifth round.



Some regions managed to cut back to the action just as Gosling struck, but many viewers only rejoined the action as the Everton players were celebrating their goal.



Apparently a scheduled ad kicked in, overriding the usually manual system, which allows technicians to switch on the ad breaks when they like after a sports fixture has over-run.



The cock-up forced ITV into an apology.



ITV executive chairman Michael Grade said:"We have years of experience in dealing with the changes in ad break patterns when games go into extra time and sometimes penalties.



"Last night's glitch was inexcusable and we are awaiting the results of our technical inquiry so we can put in place stringent and immediate procedures to address this."



The shambles did little to quell the euphoria of Everton's fans though who are now looking forward to a clash with Aston Villa at Goodison Park for a place in the quarter-finals.