Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

remarked wryly to M.J.K.Smith that his own wrist-spinner’s run-up, of eleven paces, was about the same length as Copson’s.) He had a slight pause before delivery with a high arm and very frequently surprised batsmen who were left playing much too late at the ball. Later in his career the delivery which came into the right-hand batsman was described as ‘a genuine off break rather than an inswinger.’ Pelham Warner thought he put ‘life and venom into every ball.’ He could be genuinely hostile and at various times in his career, R.E.S.Wyatt, Patsy Hendren and others were injured when trying to deal with his shorter delivery. Billy Griffith reported that his bowling ‘can be very unpleasant indeed.’ Batsmen who faced him later in his first-class career found that he bowled ‘very straight.’ After this initial flurry of wickets, he regularly opened the bowling with Stan Worthington, but did not take more than three in a single innings until the end of the season. 8 Wisden commented favourably in its seasonal notes, stating that he had ‘a good action’ and ‘should do well in the future.’ The News Chronicle Cricket Annual , less generously, thought him simply ‘useful.’ He finished the season with 46 Championship wickets at an average of 26.76 from seventeen matches. Derbyshire had fallen three places in the Championship table this season, finishing in tenth position. Two of their early games were abandoned without a ball being bowled. They went on to record five successive defeats between 1 and 17 June. Altogether, they won only six of their twenty eight matches. Harry Storer headed the batting averages: other batsmen to pass the thousand runs in the season were Stanley Worthington, Leslie Townsend, Denis 18 Starting in First-Class Cricket New kid on the block. Bill Copson in his first season in first-class cricket. 8 In his sixth match for Derbyshire he played against George Gunn, the eminent Nottinghamshire and England batsman, by then 53 years of age, who had made his first-class debut as far back as 1902. In his last full first-class season in 1949 Copson played in two matches versus Yorkshire who included the eighteen-year-old Brian Close, who did not make his final first-class appearance until 1986. Bill’s two opponents between them therefore had a career span of eighty four years.