Two Croydon councillors have apologised after they were caught watching coverage of Crystal Palace’s draw with Everton on Monday during a debate about the future of a local theatre.

A member of the public took pictures of John Wentworth and Pat Ryan watching a stream of the game, which finished 1-1 to lift Palace up to sixth in the table, on an iPad while the meeting was taking place in the council chamber. Local resident Gabriella Bush tweeted the picture with the message: “Nice to see councillors have their full attention on matters”.

In response, Ryan denied they had not been concentrating on the debate over the future of Fairfield Halls

“John turned his iPad on to see what the score was quick. We saw what the score was and we turned it off, but in that time some guy upstairs must have got a shot of it,” he told the Croydon Guardian.

“We did check the score, there was a vision on the screen as we checked the score was 0-0, but all we were doing was checking to see how our local team Crystal Palace were doing. We were not ignoring what was going on.

“At that point we weren’t aware that somebody was hanging over the balcony very irate about what they heard or didn’t hear about the Fairfield. They were obviously very irate because they didn’t hear what they wanted to hear and it was an opportunity I suppose.”

Ryan added: “If people feel I was not concentrating then I can assure them that was not the case. It was fleeting look at the score and that was the end of it. If they are upset by that then I do apologise.”