On Saturday we were accompanied in the Media Centre by a local chap called Ellis Mills who wants to move into sports journalism & sports media after school & university. He asked if he could do a piece for the website & social media.
Remember the name for when he’s the anchorman on Sky Sports!
Here goes:
On Saturday the 16th of March we commemorated the 40th anniversary of the 1984 miners strike. On this match day we look back to the year long strike that took place between 1984 and 1985. The strike had an affect on our entire country but mining villages such as South Elmsall suffered the most. This financially affected the community as families could barely get by causing strike poverty. During this time people would look forward to football, for some much needed relief.
Frickley Athletic as a club rose high in the 1984/85 season playing some of their best football, notably in the FA cup reaching the 4th qualifying round, and even in the FA trophy reaching the quarter final but sadly falling short against Wealdstone losing 3-1. This brought excitement to the community at a time when morale was low. The proceeding season they reached the 3rd round of the FA cup and played Rotherham United with a record attendance of 5,800 people. Although the mood surrounding the strike was negative, football was the one thing that helped and was truly an outstanding time for Frickley Athletic as a club.
In 1984 the off field struggle was very real, fast forward 40 years to 2024 & the struggle is now on the field. After a series of reverses, the Blues went toe to toe with Rossington
Within the first ten minutes of the match the Rossington side gained its first yellow as Harrison had picked it up on a challenge, but then in the 16th minute Harrison redeemed himself scoring with a well placed header from the free kick, the rest of the half was at a stalemate until there was an appeal for a penalty by Rossington that was denied and a bit of pressure from Frickley in the final minutes of the half.
In the second half Rossington had made three substitutions to help keep themselves in the game to handle Frickleys pressure. The main hope for Frickley in this match came in the 94th minute when a collision in the box was appealed for a penalty for the home side but the decision was no penalty. It reached full time and the home side was saddened by the 1-0 loss ending the day at 13th in the table. They will look to make up from the loss in their next fixture.
Photo courtesy of Kairen Clark
