Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

allow the Samuel Commission to report on the dispute. At one time over a million and a half such workers were on strike. Although the General Strike was ‘settled’ after nine days on 12 May, the miners remained on strike almost until the end of 1926. During the summer months, Copson, now eighteen, often went along with his colleagues to the local recreation ground to play some knockabout games of cricket. He had had no coaching in the niceties of bowling style, but simply ran up to the wicket and bowled right arm as fast as he was able in his own natural way. Many were impressed with his ability to hit the stumps so often. At one stage, he played for a team of striking miners against a Police XI, and this initially brought him to the notice of Morton Colliery Cricket Club, where he soon appeared in the second team. In 1927 he played in the first eleven and played for that side regularly thereafter for some four seasons. 5 Perhaps we should say something about Bill’s employers at this point. Copson and his fellow miners were on strike against the Clay Cross Company which operated the coal mines at Morton where he was employed. The Copson household was also a Early Days and Family Origins 13 Morton Colliery CC, probably in 1926, with Bill Copson standing third from the right, and his father wearing an umpire’s coat. 5 Basil Easterbrook, writing about Copson in the Wisden of 1979, suggests that the manner of his rise to cricket excellence was ‘so improbable’ that if a novelist presented it as a storyline, his credibility would vanish in a flash.