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The Battle of Orgreave is the name given to a confrontation between police and picketing miners at a British Steel coking plant in Orgreave, South Yorkshire, in 1984, during the UK miners' strike. In 1991, South Yorkshire Police were forced to pay out £500,000 to 39 miners who were arrested in the events at the Battle of Orgreave. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) organised a mass picket of Orgreave for 18 June 1984, with the intention of blockading the plant, and ideally forcing its temporary closure. Aware of the plans by means of MI5 infiltration, the police organised counter-measures. The NUM was represented by 5,000 to 6,000 pickets from across the UK. The police deployed between 4,000 and 8,000 officers, and were deployed from 10 counties. Of these, a small number had been trained in new riot tactics following the Toxteth and Brixton riots, while most had little or no experience in dealing with such events. There were between 40 and 50 mounted police and 58 police dogs. There were no female police officers and only a handful of female pickets. Unlike most of the strikes of the time, where pickets were kept well away from their intended positions, the strikers were escorted to a field to the north of the Orgreave plant. The field was flanked by police on all sides except the south, where the Sheffield to Worksop railway line runs. Opinion is divided as to whether this was a deliberate arrangement. ==Background to the picket== thumb The Orgreave coking works, where coal was turned into coke for use in steel production, was regarded by Scargill as crucial. Early in the strike, British Steel plants had been receiving "dispensations", picket-permitted movements of coal to prevent damage to their furnaces. However, it was found that more than the permitted amount of coal had been delivered, so action was taken. If coal could be prevented from reaching there, the low stocks at British Steel plants such as Ravenscraig steelworks would be exhausted and the furnaces prevented from "ticking over", causing significant economic damage to the industry.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Orgreave」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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