Pickets v Police: Football matches
March 1984
Pickets v Police football match near to Warsop Main Colliery on the Nottinghamshire / Derbyshire border. Photo Credit – Chad newspaper collection
Chad photographer, Roger Grayson, captured an iconic photo of pickets playing football with the police outside Warsop Main Colliery in the early days of the 1984-85 miners strike. This image featured in the 2019 Nottingham Trent University travelling exhibition, ‘Dealing with the Past: Coal, Community and Change 1965-2015’. https://miningheritage.co.uk/coal-unity/
Pickets v Police football match in March 1984 at Blidworth Colliery as witnessed by Guardian photographer, Denis Thorpe. Photo Credit – The Guardian
Guardian photographer, Denis Thorpe, was covering the 1984-85 miners strike in the Nottinghamshire coalfield when he witnessed pickets and police playing football near to Blidworth Colliery. He commented “It was one of those extraordinary moments and reminded me of the Christmas Day truce during the first world war”.
Thorpe took a photo of the proceedings and then phoned the Guardian office who did not believe him. The next day his iconic photo made the front page of the newspaper.
Police playing football with local children at Blidworth at a similar time was witnessed by a Chad photographer, who took a series of iconic images.
Local kids v police at Blidworth Colliery in March 1984. Photo Credit – Chad newspaper collection
Pickets v Police near to Warsop Main Colliery in March 1984. Photo Credit – Chad newspaper collection