Around this time every year, my thoughts turn to the devastating news we recieved in our local Club Greenfield WMC, Dunsville in 1972. It was popular with the lads who toiled down Hatfield pit. I was a young lad and I was playing football for the Clubs first team. We had reported for an evening training session when we learned that a member of the Clubs Committee's brother had been tragically killed on the picket line at Keadby Power Station when a speeding lorry mounted the kerb and hit him and he suffered fatal injuries. Four years ago, Freddie Matthews was remembered when the local community marched with a banner bearing his image. Quite a number of MP's including Dennis Skinner, the Mayor Ros Jones and lead chanter of the Beautiful South, Paul Heaton turned out , as did a lot of Freddie's fellow pickets who were with him on that tragic day. https://www.thornegazette.co.uk/new...ver-death-of-brother-on-picket-line-1-7141397
Local Doncaster MP's raised Freddie Matthews death in Parliament and it was debated at some length. To my knowledge, no one was ever charged with negligence leading to the death of a well respected lad, who was peacefully protesting to highlight the Miners legitimate demands for a pay increase. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1972/feb/03/coal-industry-dispute-pickets-death-2
