Jason, aged eleven, hated football. Tony, his father, aged thirty five, adored the game. Jason enjoyed his play station, nature and orientation. Tony considered those past-times a little weird for his only son.

‘Why don’t you play for the under 14’s,’ Tony would keep suggesting.

‘Haven’t got the legs for football, Dad,’ Jason always replied under the glare of his father’s disapproving eye.

In February, Jason and his father set off to see their local team play against Tonwich. For Jason time spent on a coach seemed a monotonous ordeal. But, with the promise that his father would buy him a new game for his play station, Jason, with reluctance, agreed to accompany him.

On the coach, surrounded by singing and shouts of ‘Come on,The Dragons!’ Jason played games on his mobile.

‘Show some enthusiasm, lad,’ Tony hissed at him through the corner of his mouth.

Absorbed, Jason didn’t hear the rebuke. When he received a nudge in his ribs, he looked up and met his father’s glowering gaze.

‘Sing will you,’ Tony muttered. ‘The others will think I’ve got a geek for a kid.’ So Jason mouthed the words to the club’s anthem while his fingers worked at his mobile.

An hour and twenty minutes later, they arrived at Tonwich Football Ground as grey clouds relieved themselves of heavy snow.

‘Bloody hell,’ his father said as fifty of his fellow football fanatics poured out from the coach, all heading for the turn stiles.

Morose, Jason walked beside him, his teeth aching as an easterly blast whipped cartons and flyers around his feet.

‘Bloody hell,’ his father repeated as they went through the turn stiles. ‘Bloody, bloody hell,’ his father continued to groan as spectators congregated on the stands, arms wrapped around bodies like Egyptian Mummies.

On both sides, supporters had scarves up and over mouths and noses. Feet stamped trying to keep the icy chill from throbbing toes. Snow began to cover the pitch like a white tarpaulin. Minutes ticked by until the whistle for kick off.

Then through the whine of a gale, the crowd, resembling hundreds of snowmen, let out a collective groan. The game had been cancelled due to the severe weather conditions.

Speechless, through a blizzard, Jason and Tony slipped and slithered out from the grounds, and made their way back to the coach where the driver, his nose red and dripping, told his mournful passengers that the motorway had been blocked with snow.

Jason looked at his father. Tony looked at his son. ‘I spotted a Travel Lodge just down the road,’ Jason told him.

‘Better get over there before the others have the same idea.’ Tony grabbed his hand but, minutes later, got disorientated.

‘Follow me,’ Jason said with confidence, guiding his father over a railing concealed by a snow drift and, for once, his father didn’t argue as if too numbed by the cold and disappointment.

Quarter of an hour later, with the aid of Jason’s knowledge of orientation, they arrived at the Travel Lodge. Falling in through the doors, Tony hugged his son as if he’d been saved him from the jaws of death.

At reception, Tony booked a room for two nights. Shivering, both man and boy headed for bedroom number 201, stumbling though the door into what felt like a hot house in the Sahara Desert.

‘What a bloody day!’ Tony exclaimed, his lips turning from un-natural blue to healthy pink.

‘What a day,’ Jason agreed, eyeing the TV’s blank screen.

That night, as the wind howled and snow kept falling, Jason and his father rested in a comfortable but reasonably priced bedroom. Beside the hotel, they'd spotted a Harry Ramsden's and decided, after a hot shower, they’d have a fish and chip supper.

After supper, Tony watched Jason playing on his mobile while the TV flickered hissing static. Then Tony had a go at Jason’s mobile, leaving his son staring at a screen flecked with white like the snow that continued to fall, outside.

When they eventually arrived home, three days later, Jason was already looking forward to the Spring. His father promised he'd take him camping on the Brecon Beacons. Then in August, he’d book a weekend at an Orientation Course set in the scenic depths of Mid Wales.