THERE'S never a good time for a power cut, but just as England are about to play a massive World Cup game has to be about the worst.

England are taking on Colombia in the last 16 of the 2018 tournament in Russia tonight.

But parts of Middlesbrough lost power before the match kicked off.

One resident, Andrew Fletcher tweeted: "Massive power cut in Middlesbrough. Perfect timing! Spare a thought for us guys."

Another resident posted on Facebook: "Well no football for us theres a ******* power cut. Back on, est 20.30."

Northern Powergrid confirmed the outage around 6.45pm. "We know about the #powercut in #TS1 #TS3 #TS4. We’re working hard to get the power back on, thanks for your patience, updates to follow," they reported.

At 7.15pm they reported: "We’ve restored supply to a large number of customers in #TS1 #TS3 #TS4. We’re working to have all remaining customers sorted by 20:15. Thanks for your patience."

At 7.55pm with England drawing 0-0 at half-time, a spokesman for Northern Powergrid told The Northern Echo: "We had a large power cut affecting TS1, TS3 and TS4. However, this is now fully restored. We do have a smaller fault affecting 42 customers in the TS6 area."