The National Union of Mineworkers went on strike in March 1984. The dispute lasted for over a year and was the most bitterly fought since the general strike of 1926, marking a turning point in the struggle between the government and the trade union movement.

On the 18 June 1984 there occurred at the Orgreave coking plant one of the strike's most violent confrontations, begun in a field near to the plant and culminating in a police cavalry charge through the village of Orgreave.