Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

distinguished career, he was still a formidable batsman. 7 Copson also had the valuable experience of bowling against Jack Hobbs, the Master himself, eight years older than Sandham and some two years away from his last first-class season of 1934. Bill went on to take three further wickets in the innings, bowling T.F.Shepherd and P.G.H.Fender and trapping Douglas Jardine leg before wicket. He finished with the highly respectable debut figures of four for 43, against the formidable Surrey batting line up. The Times awarded him a simple headline the following morning, ‘Young Bowler’s Good Start’, referring to his bowling as ‘just over medium pace’ and to his ability to ‘swing the ball a little bit each way.’ Under grey skies and with a strong wind blowing, he can scarcely have expected more helpful conditions. The newspapers did not mention that this was Copson’s first visit to London and that he was not able to afford a proper pair of cricket boots for the occasion. He played in ill-fitting shoes which, by the time he had reached his twenty fifth and final over, had made his feet start running with blood. It is said that his fellow players cut pieces off his shoes with a razor blade to allow him to continue bowling. Surrey, however, went on to win the match very comfortably by 199 runs. Copson took a further two wickets in the Surrey second innings, T.F.Shepherd for the second time in the match, and E.W.J.Brooks, the wicket-keeper. Copson was only the second player, after H.G.Curgenven in 1896, to take a wicket for Derbyshire with his first ball on first-class debut for the county. The feat has been accomplished twice subsequently, by F.C.Brailsford and J.G.Wright. He had further immediate success for Derbyshire in his next two matches, taking five for 48 in the first innings against Hampshire at Southampton and five for 40 at Tonbridge versus Kent. Thus in his first three matches for his county he had taken 17 wickets for 284 runs: shortly after he was awarded his county cap. Copson had a very deceptive pace off the wicket, from quite a short run for a fast bowler. (Frank Thorogood of the News Chronicle described it ‘as a quiet run-up of six or seven paces’, although Eric Hollies once Starting in First-Class Cricket 17 7 Many years later, by one of those strange chances in life, Bill’s son Michael was introduced at a new neighbours’ house welcoming party when he and his wife moved to Gloucestershire. On exchanging names the host said casually, ‘No relation to the cricketer, I suppose?’ When Michael replied in the affirmative, he said, ‘What a coincidence: my name is George Sandham, nephew of the cricketer.’ The two families have been close friends ever since.