Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

Chapter Two Starting in First-Class Cricket Copson became a professional cricketer when he joined the county staff in April, 1932, just before his twenty fourth birthday. He had not been recruited by the traditional method of whistling down a mineshaft, but the method was close enough to ensure that traditionalists could recognise that ‘custom and practice’ was being continued. Derbyshire were at this time an improving team under their new captain, Arthur Richardson, who had become leader in 1931, when he succeeded Guy Jackson. Competition was keen for a place in the first team with Stanley Worthington, Leslie Townsend and Alfred Pope all potential regular opening bowlers. The end of the 1931 season had also seen the retirement, at the age of 41, of Archie Slater, who took 108 wickets that year, to take up a contract with Colne in the Lancashire League, leaving a space for a newcomer. In a rain-reduced second team match at Edgbaston at Whitsun, 1932, Copson took five wickets for 38, including four for 30 in Warwickshire’s first innings. Apparently unable to find a replacement for Slater’s medium pace, the county gave Bill a chance in the first team in Derbyshire’s ninth game of the summer which happened to be against Surrey at Kennington Oval on 8 June. He could not have chosen a better place, apart perhaps from Lord’s, to make his first-class debut: events at well known grounds often seem, even to this day, perhaps somewhat unfairly, to attract more attention from the Press, which was certainly the case in this instance. Copson’s feat of taking the wicket of Andrew Sandham with his first ball in first-class cricket is often remembered whenever his name is mentioned. Stanley Worthington had bowled the opening over and, with only four runs on the board, all scored by Jack Hobbs, Bill with his first ball had Sandham well taken at second slip by Charlie Elliott for a duck. Although the Surrey batsman was in his early forties and coming towards the end of his 16