Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

regime there gave him a far more robust physique, adding about a stone to his weight, and set him up for the following summer’s splendid achievements. He had a much better second half of the season, with a nine wicket aggregate in the match against Gloucestershire at Burton-on-Trent, and six Sussex wickets in an innings at Hove in early August. Derbyshire finished the season in second place to Yorkshire, having at one period, at the end of June, headed the table. A defeat by that county at Scarborough in mid-August finally put paid to any chance of their becoming champions. They won as many as sixteen matches, a record number, out of twenty eight, many by comfortable margins. They started the season in convincing fashion, winning four consecutive games in May, each of them in two days, and had a splendid victory over Somerset at Derby when they dismissed that county in the second innings for only 35 runs. Copson played a very important part in this victory taking five wickets for fifteen runs in their opponents’ rout. 9 Although his appearances for the county were intermittent, Copson had nevertheless established himself as a match-winning bowler. Derbyshire had won twelve of the eighteen Championship matches in which he played: the county played ten games when he was absent; of these they won only four. The two Pope brothers, George and Alfred, had excellent seasons for their county, with much improved records in both batting and bowling. Mitchell had another splendid season taking as many as 160 Championship wickets, a new record for the county. This included all ten in an innings against Leicestershire at Leicester for sixty four runs. Denis Smith had an outstanding season with the bat scoring 1,697 Championship runs at an average of 42.42. He made his Test debut against the visiting South Africans in the Third Test Match at Headingley, making 36 and 57. He was also selected for the unofficial winter’s tour to Australasia in the side captained by E.R.T.Holmes of Surrey which played fourteen first-class matches. After the season had ended, the uncertainty Bill must have felt about his cricket career was no doubt softened when on Thursday, 21 November, 1935, he was married at the Church of the Holy 22 Starting in First-Class Cricket 9 In his autobiography, Bill Andrews refers to the pace of Copson’s bowling in the second innings of this match. Somerset were set 150 to win in ninety minutes. Opening the batting, Andrews was yorked middle stump first ball, with his bat ‘still in the air.’ Somerset’s collapse followed.