The first time I've praised a road

Last updated : 29 December 2005 By Paul Farrington

There was terrible traffic on the M6 motorway between junctions 23 and 17 at Sandbach, meaning that many Latics fans missed the game all together. There was also bad traffic on the M1 as a lorry chose to break down.

Many of the coaches did not get to the game and no doubt many of the supporters will have been abandoned on the motorway with no other option than to turn back home in frustration.

Jewell said: "Half our supporters haven't got here tonight because of accidents on the M6", he said, "so they deserve credit even though they missed watching a great victory".

Thankfully I managed to make the game with 20 minutes to spare thanks to some quick thinking from my co-driver!

The A50 that saved our visit to West Ham
After leaving at 13:00, just metres from the close of the M62 junction towards Liverpool we chose to divert and head off through Warrington, Knutsford and Holmes Chapel on the A50 parrallel to the M6. Returning to the motorway at junction 17.

The move paid off and it was touch and go whether we would make kick off, we hit junction 17 at 15:30 and the race was on.

Thanks to the traffic news on the radio, we avoided the jam on the M1 and went down the M42 and M40 towards London instead. This was free-moving and lets say we made good time.

Hitting the end of the M40 at Uxbridge 18:00. The battle was on to reach the Boleyn Ground before kick off at 19:45. We had to negotiate London in time for kick off, but had a master plan.

The tube. What a wonderful piece of kit that is. We arrived just miles from the end of the M40 at West Ruislip tube station, parked up free of charge and climbed on our tube to Mile End before changing for Upton Park.

The journey across London took just one hour and we arrived at Upton Park tube station with half an hour to spare before kick off. Certainly one of the more close cut journey's of my experience following the Latics.

I was however, forced to spare a thought for Charlton Athletic's travelling army were intructed just 25 minutes before kick off that their game with Newcastle at St James' Park was called off.

A journey no less than 600 there and back. This has called many supporters to call for action to be taken when decided fixtures in hte holiday period.

The chairman of the Football Supporters Federation Malcolm Clarke commented: "We would like fixture computer programmed in a way that, for night games, supporters didn't have to travel these long distances.

"What the football authorities have not programmed in is the distance the away support have to travel and that is what we would like to see. Often the traveling supporter , the game's best customer, is the most abused.

"What we can do is stop away supporters having to travel huge distances for night games."

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