Setting off from Middlesbrough shortly after 6pm, the running joke was that the weather experts in this country never get things right. Hurricane, what hurricane?
Within a couple of hours, despite the wind and torrential rain, we had made swift progress to Blythe, where I had collected my colleagues from BBC Radio Nottingham, for the journey to the game.
It was there that we were greeted by a festive scene. A snow draped village. What could be more pretty, right? Sure, if you were planning on sitting by the fire and watching the scene through a double glazed window.
Returning to the A1 by just after 8pm, my mood was very different. By the time I reached the A614 I was quietly debating whether that tatty old blanket was still in the boot. Or if I had a spade. Or a will.
But the issue was not snow. It was people. Scandinavia does not grind to a halt every winter. Somehow the people of Norway and Sweden manage, chaos does not descend upon them upon the sight of six inches of the white stuff.
Yet in north Nottinghamshire, madness quickly unfolded. Cars driving on the wrong side of the road because they did not fancy being in a queue of traffic, others deciding that the best course of action was to stick it in first gear and floor it… into a bush.
Yes, if you were driving slow enough past me, on the wrong side of the road, you did hear me call you that. I did use that word. I was an angry man. And you were acting very much like one of those.
I felt a certain kinship with the car in front of me. Not just because, at one stage, I had been staring at the back of it for more than an hour, without moving an inch. But because of the fact that, once one of us (ahem) had waded out to pee in the undergrowth by the roadside, everyone else nearby seemed to follow suit, within a minute. All delivering a nod of recognition, as only the British would do, as they waddled back to their vehicles wearing a look of relief.
There was the truck driver who got out his cab to knock on windows to cheerfully remind people not to shut down their engines if they did not want their brakes to freeze up. Or their passengers.
There was a passer by, walking up the road with his brolly, who was patiently stopping at every wound down window to answer questions about the delay.
And his answer was simple. People just can't drive in snow.
There were the idiots, the blessed idiots who had failed to grasp the simple concept that, when trying to drive up a snow covered hill, the only real way to achieve success is very definitely not to either a) go as slowly as physically possible in first gear b) go as fast as humanly possible in first gear.
There was the question of exactly why the council had seemingly not been out to grit the roads, despite at least 12 hours of warning that snow was coming. Although one gritter did meander apologetically along the road, in the opposite direction, at some time just after 10pm.
But the main reason most of us were not home until hours later were those who, upon the sight of snow, turned into a dribbling, incompetent fool behind the wheel and, as an end result, endlessly blocked the road until others had come to their rescue.
I've had the same car for more than ten years. Largely because I am a creature of habit. But also because I happen to like it. It's like an old friend. It's battered, it's old, it's on it's last legs. The heating fan has only one setting left that works. It is either off or on gale force nine. The switch gave up working years ago. But I still can't part with it. I was happy to have gale force nine. I was silently praying that it would not give up.
It also has the most redundant piece of equipment ever to be installed in a car in the history of motoring. The back seats do not fold down, but they do have a flap, which opens, to allow you to carry your skis.
Anyone who has driven an Alfa Romeo will know that this is like having a Champagne chiller in a Lada Riva; a gun rack in a Prius.
You might be able to carry your skis in it, but you'd have more chance getting to the top of a mountain on a magic carpet than in an Alfa. It would be quicker to post your skis to the resort and walk.
Fortunately, I was not trying to get up the side of a mountain. Only past Blidworth Bottoms.
It took more than three hours to travel the final six miles home. Three hours of swearing, of sweating, of cursing the weather gods and that git in the Land Rover wearing a look of total smugness as he sauntered up the hill like it was a spring day.
The sight of Arnold looming on the horizon has never seemed so lovely.
I even came home armed with an idea for our website. Not a campaign to improve the gritting of the county's roads, no. But an idiots guide to driving in the snow.
Hopefully everyone who made the trip to Middlesbrough – for Nottingham Forest's 3-0 defeat – also got home safe, eventually. And thanks to those who offered kind words on Twitter.
We were not alone as Forest fans or reporters, Nottingham Panthers ice hockey fans were hit with some of the worst weather in the country when they set foot outside the Motorpoint Arena.
They had just seen their team beat arch rivals Sheffield Steelers 4-0 on Boxing Day, but their journey back down the M1 was hellacious compared to the journey up.
Panthers reporter Matt Davies was caught in the mayhem himself travelling back south and said: "At some points between junction 28 for Alfreton and junction 26 for Hucknall the southbound carriageway was reduced to one stream of slow vehicles as lanes became impossible to see and drivers looked to following the tracks of the person in front to find grip.
"Panthers fan Michael Harness was forced to stay in a hotel nine miles from his Warsop home while others reported massive delays."
Despite being at home, Notts County fans came out from the 1-0 loss to MK Dons to snow flurries and reporter Leigh Curtis struggled his way back to his Lincoln home.
He commented: "I left Meadow Lane at 5.50pm and the snow was just beginning to come down. But once I got over Lady Bay Bridge it was like wet tissues were being thrown at my car the flakes were that big!"
But spare the biggest thought of all for the Post's Mansfield Town reporter Sarah Clapson and the nightmare 13-hour experience she endured following the Stags' 1-1 draw with Hartlepool United at the One Call Stadium.
After emailing in all her work for the paper and online, Sarah left the ground just after 6pm to see her car was snowed in and the only one left in the car park.
She got out only to spend the next couple of hours struggling to even get out of the town such was the severity of the blizzard-like conditions.
In the end she gave up and was resigned to spending the night in her car in the freezing snow until some lovely people from Tesco in Mansfield took pity on her and showed the true spirit of Christmas by allowing her to take shelter in their break room – even though the shop was not yet open.
This was just after 11pm and she stayed there until 5.30am before finishing her journey to north Lincs and finally getting to bed around 7.30am this morning.
![Paul Taylor column: My horrid trip back in the snow from covering Nottingham Forest and spare a thought for our Mansfield Town reporter]( "Paul Taylor column: My horrid trip back in the snow from covering Nottingham Forest and spare a thought for our Mansfield Town reporter")
