It's been very cold recently and already Hereford United have had two matches postponed, but as Ron Parrott points out this is nothing compared with 1946/47.
Although 1962/3 was pretty bad, the worst season on record was in fact 1946/47. The snows came at the end of January and played havoc with the fixture list and for the whole month of February, hardly any football was played anywhere in the country.
The following extract from my "Complete History" gives a flavour of what travelling to away games was like then, certainly no luxury coaches in those days!
"United’s Saturday game at Bedford on the first of February is one of only two matches played in the entire Southern League. It’s a miracle that the team even makes it to Bedford! They set off early in the morning in contrasting forms of transport. The lucky ones travel in luxury in Len Weston’s Rolls Royce, the not-so-lucky ones travel in a Ford V8, but the ones who draw a short straw have to travel in a converted Army truck in considerable discomfort. The first two parties arrive in Bedford with ample time to spare but the truck only arrives just before kick-off after being stuck in a snowdrift on the Malvern Hills for over an hour. In the circumstances, they do remarkably well to come away with a share of the spoils in a 2-2 draw."
March brought yet more snow and then torrential rain and the inevitable great thaw and by the third week in March, the Wye had reached its highest level in 155 years, with most of the city and many outlying villages totally cut off. At the end of March, United played a home game against Gravesend and this was their first home game in almost two months!
April and May was "catch-up" time with a glut of fixtures and the final Southern League fixture was not completed until Saturday 14th June. Truly amazing!