Martin Winter was a professional rugby league footballer and the son of a local newsagent proprietor and property developer.

[2] Only the leader of the three-member Community Group and one Liberal Democrat, who was suspended from that party, joined his new cabinet.

The members of Doncaster Council supported a motion of no confidence in Mayor Winter on 14 July 2008 by 42 votes to 8 with 7 abstentions.

[3] Further calls for Winter's resignation followed in January 2009 after the Authority was deemed to be seriously failing in its delivery of social services following the deaths of seven children that were on the local "At Risk" register.

In April 2015 he published his biography "fall out – loved and trusted... hated & abused..." the memoirs of a mayor ISBN 9780993249013.