The Battle of Saltley Gate was the mass picketing of a fuel storage depot in Birmingham, England, in February 1972 during a national miners' strike.

[4][5] Having closed every coal mine in the country, the miners' union sought to leverage its position by 'freezing' existing stockpiles of fuel in place, preventing them from being transported to the power stations, businesses and heavy industries that depended on them.

[10] When news of mile-long queues of lorries waiting to collect fuel was published on 3 February in the Birmingham Mail, a small group of miners from nearby Staffordshire set up a picket line at the works.

[9][11][12] Their numbers proved ineffectual at persuading the lorry drivers to turn back, and Birmingham City Police sent hundreds of officers to ensure the depot gates were kept open.

"[14][15][16][17] The picketing and closure of the depot has been called "the miners' Agincourt", and brought one of its architects, Arthur Scargill – until then, "an obscure regional union official" – to national prominence as "a tribune of the working classes... hailed by the British magazine Harper's & Queen as one of Britain's leaders of the future.

[19][21] The National Union of Railwaymen instructed its members not to cross picket lines, not to operate trains carrying fuel and "not to do anything that could be construed as strike-breaking".

[6] With the collieries successfully closed, the miners were now able to focus their efforts on picketing coal-fired power stations, docks and fuel storage depots.

[6] Schools and private businesses, which due to their limited storage capacities tended not to stockpile large amounts of fuel, also began to close within the first week, unable to provide heating.

[27] Under guidelines agreed between the NUM, the NCB and the government, dispensation was given to allow fuel to be transported to "priority consumers" – hospitals, nursing homes for the elderly, and orphanages.

[28] On 7 February, four weeks into the strike, the effective blockade placed on fuel stockpiles led to the CEGB cutting the voltage across the National Grid and warning of impending power outages.

[35] Police officers on duty at the picket line had to use cars belonging to miners to pursue the lorry, and brought it to a halt around a mile from the scene of the incident.

[11][35] As news of Matthews' death began to spread that evening, Tom Swain, the MP for Derbyshire North East, demanded that the Home Secretary return to Parliament immediately to make a statement.