ITV was forced to apologise following an "interruption" to its live coverage of England's opening World Cup game that caused viewers to miss Steven Gerrard's goal.

Viewers of the channel's high definition HD service reported the channel had temporarily gone down at the moment England scored their first goal of the competition. Furious viewers immediately complained, with some describing the service as a "joke".

Viewers reported that in the early stages of the match the coverage had suddenly switched to an advert. When live coverage returned viewers found they had missed Gerrard's opening goal against the USA.

The ITV1 presenter Adrian Chiles apologised to viewers during the half-time break. He said: "Apologies for those watching in HD. I believe there was some interruption in your coverage."

An ITV spokeswoman said: "A transmission problem temporarily affected ITV1's HD service during the England-USA match. ITV standard definition service continued uninterrupted. We apologise for the interruption in transmission."

The spokeswoman said the problem had not originated in South Africa but she could not confirm how many viewers had been affected.

The social networking site Twitter was immediately deluged with complaints about the coverage. One poster named "Timwellspent" wrote: "ITV HD missed England's goal because it was playing an advert. A joke and embarrassment quite frankly."

Another poster "Paul_Durand" added: "ITV HD is a joke. First England goal of the World Cup, and there was a Hyundai advert on."

The gaffe mirrors similar scenes last year when ITV missed the crucial winning goal during a tense FA Cup tie. The channel switched to an automated ad break as the eventual finalists, Everton, scored the winning goal against Liverpool.

The chairman of ITV, Michael Grade, was forced to issue an apology for the "inexcusable glitch".