THERE was a time on the way back on the M6 the other Tuesday night when we engaged in higher mathematics. We hit a jam around Sandbach and then proceeded one mile in 54 minutes. We reckoned that we had 150 miles to go until we reached Watford and our homes.

Had we continued at a mile per 54 minutes, it would have taken us a further 135 hours. That would have meant we would not have got back in time to have made it to Nottingham on the Saturday. That would also have meant those fans who were held up in that dreadful jam last season, would again have been frustrated in their attempt to reach the City ground.

As it was, the jam lasted about an hour and 20 minutes: the worst I have experienced coming home from an evening match.

We had set off in high spirits because that Tuesday night's game was the last of this rash of mid-week away trips. There was a time when every Watford game was an event but my work-load has changed and having to leave so early for the likes of Cardiff or Preston does make a hole in your working week. I have to work on Sunday to prepare for the lost working hours.

In younger days I could get back at 1.30am, go to sleep and wake up at 6am, walk the dogs and be in the office ready to do a day's work well before nine but time and age takes its toll and recovery from such a late night is not so easily obtained. So not only do they make a hole in Tuesday's work schedule but Wednesday's start in somewhat delayed.

So, to relieve the monotony of staring at exhaust pipes, lorry tyres and similarly frustrated occupants in cars alongside us in last Tuesday's jam, we recalled previous nightmare journeys. As it happens, those who were held up for seven or so hours, on the way to Forest last season, probably suffered the worst delay experienced by Watford fans in living memory. In some cases they not only missed the game but were geographically passed by returning Watford fans ater it.

That was caused by someone contemplating suicide as he sat on a motorway bridge.

If he was just seeking attention, he certainly had his seven or eight hours of fame.

I had travelled through that particular spot some time before he climbed on the parapet. So I missed that nightmare.

The worst jam I was almost involved in would have seen me and three daughters, bottled up for days.

I was travelling down south of Paris one summer afternoon on the motorway. There had been a few blockages on the approach to the motorway further north and I had turned down a track into a wood, following two Frenchmen who I hoped knew what they were doing. We came out on a road and then rejoined the main artery further down the motorway beyond the jam and headed south for two hours before a squeal of brakes to the left and right alerted me to another hold-up. I was lucky. There was a slip-road to my right and I took it, heading across country and driving through the night. It was an instinctive decision I just felt something was going on. We arrived in Spain the next day.

I phoned home and heard that the French lorry drivers had bottled up all the motorways in a strike action and some people would be held up for three or four days that summer of 1992.

I also recall a very bad hold up on the M25 as we headed for as pre-season friendly at Colchester in Glenn Roeder's day. It was very frustrating because we were worried we might miss out on seeing Watford's new signing, Jamie Moralee.

I know you might think in comparison to watching Moralee play, sometimes being stuck in traffic jams can be relatively pleasant.

Ironically that match at Colchester was his greatest Watford game and he scored a superb goal. We travelled home thinking we had cracked the striker problem.

The jam cleared on Thursday night and it did not take 150 hours to get back. Appearances can deceive.