The fans at the FA Cup game no-one could see

Fellow Magpies fan Lynda Lally, from Beeston in Nottinghamshire, said the weather got "worse and worse" after half-time.

"For the other 45 minutes, we could only see what was happening once players emerged from the fog," she said.

The weather became "a cross between an eerie Christmas nativity gone horribly wrong - and the 1980s film called The Fog," Kirke said.

Kirke added the fog that led to an FA Cup third-round replay between Notts County and Wimbledon being abandoned in 2001 "wasn't as bad" as it was at Altrincham.

"I don't know what on earth had to happen for the referee to call it off," he said.