Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

Member of Parliament. London Counties, who played 196 matches from 1941 to 1945 and West of England, with 38 games in 1944 and 1945 were also prominent. These sides and others kept a considerable number of Test match and other leading cricketers before the public, providing much enjoyment to ‘cricket-starved’ spectators. Derbyshire played one county match on the two days of the Whitsuntide Bank Holiday weekend of 1940 against their close rivals Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge but Bill Copson, although selected, failed to arrive, probably because of the vagaries of the wartime transport systems. The county made 239 for nine wickets, innings closed, L.F.Townsend making 69. Nottinghamshire took a first innings lead of 95 and Derbyshire in their second venture declared at 201 for 6. G.M.Lee, the former Derbyshire player who was one of the umpires, was allowed to bat in the second innings in place of Copson. The home side, set 106 runs to win, finished on 65 for the loss of one wicket. A number of Derbyshire players, including Harold Pope, Worthington, Rhodes and Arnold Townsend were conscripted into the armed services. Bill Copson, along with his colleagues Mitchell, Alf and George Pope, Harry Elliott, Alderman, Denis Smith, and Leslie Townsend were later reported as engaged in ‘work of national importance’, a term which generally referred to the munitions industry. In 1940, the summer of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, Bill, together with Leslie Townsend, had taken jobs with a coal merchant and haulage firm, J.H.Roper Ltd in Ripley, Derbyshire. The proprietor, Joe Roper, whose son Cyril later married Harold Larwood’s daughter June, had been determined to bring success to his local team Butterley, who played in the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Border League. Former players for this club included the Derbyshire players James Disney and the Storer brothers William and Harry sr, who were all born in that village. Roper offered the captaincy to Townsend and Bill Copson was very soon among the wickets. His early season figures included five for 17 and six for 29 against Kimberley and Pinxton respectively. Butterley won their first eight matches, in which Copson took fifty wickets. He finished the season with the highly respectable figures of 78 wickets in 187 overs at an average of 5.19. The highlight of his season was his performance on the August Bank Holiday Monday when he took all ten Stainsby wickets for twenty runs in World War Two 59