Tough one this. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to feel for the families and communities that were left without the focal point they had had for generations. However :
1. I think the coal industry's day was largely done by then, in the sense that many of the pits were uneconomic (we probably switched one unsustainable model for another based upon benefit-dependency, but that is another story). The end would have come for many of those pits sooner or later.
2. It's also true that the Government picked the fight at a time of its choosing. They could have confronted the union the previous year, but waited until they stockpiled enough coal for a long fight, and then forced the issue in the spring.
3. But for me the biggest single factor was the hubris of the NUM leadership. They thought they were bigger than the Government, and were wrong. They thought they could out-manoeuvre the Government, and were wrong about that too. The outcome shamed everyone, in many ways - but the NUM have to take their share of it.
In fact, if you are a trades unionist, I'd say you can put the raft of legislation limiting union power that followed squarely at the NUM's door. If it hadn't been for Orgreave et al, then a lot of that reform might not have happened.