In 1763 Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon set off on what would be a gruelling 4-year expedition to map the border between Pennsylvania and Delaware, thus shaping the nascent United States and establishing what would be a line of demarcation between the south and the north in the American Civil War.

Last Saturday, Wrexham’s club secretary Geraint Parry and I set off on an equally tasking trek, with a similarly portentous goal: to get to a football match in Burton-on-Trent.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be offered a lift from Geraint to Wrexham’s away games this season, as he is not only a legendary figure at the club, but also the nicest man you could ever meet, with an incredible store of stories and information on the club and the game.

Need to know whether we can bring a new goalkeeper in during the transfer window?

Desperate to understand what circumstances dictate the colour of kit we wear to away games?

Unsure of the name of the blond centre back who played a quarter of an hour at the end of a youth match in Stourbridge in 1984?

Geraint will know, and he’ll sprinkle in some interesting and surprising detail along the way.

Usually the only complication in Geraint’s journeys to Wrexham games occurs when he arrives at the opposing ground and has to identify himself to the steward on the car park gate. I have taken it upon myself to become the official chronicler of the many mispronunciations of his name, in all their rich range of variety. Some efforts are remarkable and, while I am sympathetic to anyone who struggles with the exotic sounds of the Welsh language, I can’t help feeling that Geraint is pronounced phonetically, and shouldn’t cause a problem.

I digress. Last Saturday was challenging. A yellow weather warning stretched along the entirety of our route, and the first half hour of our journey certainly justified the Met Office’s concerns.

You could have built a log cabin with ensuite jacuzzi from the timber which was strewn on the road to Crewe. Throw in a succession of floods, which often meant we’d round a corner to find a car on our side of the road circumnavigating a brand new lake which had sprung up on the A534, and you have what you might reasonably call sub-optimal driving conditions.

Geraint ploughed through it all, of course, as lesser humans pulled U-turns and headed back home, while abandoned and damaged cars were strewn along our route and blue lights flashed at alarmingly regular intervals.

At least things would be better on the way home, after the floods had dried up. Or so we thought.

When I was a child I remember reading about roads in the western states of the USA which carved their way through the trunks of giant sequoia trees. I was about to experience the Staffordshire equivalent, as a road was blocked by a freshly fallen tree.

It was a big one too, and it had propped itself up on the opposite side of the road, leaving just enough space to drive a car under. That, of course, is what we did, while lines of lorries formed either side of the obstruction.

I assumed that bizarre experience would be the end of it, but thought again when we arrived at Bangor-on-Dee to find the river had burst its banks!

We tried to cross the river which stretched across the road, but even Geraint was forced to turn back after the water level reached to within six inches of the car window!

The driver ahead of us ploughed on and made the other side. Locals will forever speak of this mythical figure, ten foot tall and with a heart the size of Burton Albion’s left back, who took on the mighty Dee and triumphed.

We eventually found our way home and could put our adventure down to experience. I might not have seen the funny side of the trek so readily if we hadn’t won!

There’s a serious point to raise here. In the midst of a weather warning, football essentially carried on as normal.

I’m genuinely conflicted over this. On the one hand, when the official advice is to be cautious and leave home only when necessary, it seems peculiar that so many people – teams, fans, officials – travelled around the country in the name of a game.

Admittedly, the circumstances were different in Wales, with a red warning in play, but the FAW took the responsible route by calling all Saturday games off. By removing the necessity to travel, they probably saved lives.

I’m telling the story of Saturday as a fun adventure, and to be fair, that is how I’ll remember it. It’ll be a great anecdote I can share with folk who ask what lengths I’ll go to in order to report on Wrexham. However, it could have turned out very differently.

On the other hand, perhaps football has the right, pragmatic approach. If the game can be played, the game should be played.

When I got up on Saturday morning and saw the utterly horrific weather – torrential rain going sideways in a howling gale – I couldn’t believe we were being asked to drive across the country in those conditions.

Similarly, within the club on Saturday night the consensus seemed to be that there’d be no way the following day’s game at Barry would take place. After all, the women’s team had cancelled their initial plans to travel south on Saturday due to the weather.

However, the game took place without a hitch.

Maybe being hard-nosed is the way to be. Or, much more likely, every case is different and we shouldn’t shoehorn a one-size-fits-all approach to such matters. The problem is, dumb luck is often what makes the difference between a good decision and a bad one in these situations.