Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

eight overs. Eight of his opponents were bowled and he also performed the hat trick. This was Butterley’s tenth successive League victory. Butterley were frustrated in the league’s knock-out competition when they lost in the semi-final on a saturated pitch which negated Copson’s pace. This was at Heanor, who were assisted by W.E.G.Payton, a cleric and Cambridge Blue who later ‘turned out’ for Derbyshire. Although most of Copson’s opposing batsmen were obviously some way below county standard, his season with this club can only be described as excellent and it had certainly kept his bowling skills in very good repair. Early in 1941 Bill was seconded to work in Shipley, Yorkshire, a town on the northern edge of Bradford, 26 and lodged with a family called Lightowler who lived in Leyburn Grove. Emily remained in Clay Cross and continued to run her hairdressing business. Bill was very fortunate to work in an area where there was great enthusiasm and support for cricket, and was soon approached by the Bradford League club, Saltaire, whose home ground was just a couple of miles from his lodgings. The approach may not have been much of a surprise, as his Derbyshire colleague, Alf Pope had played for Saltaire in the previous season. The League, with twenty clubs in and around Bradford, arranged in two divisions, had been founded in 1903 and had a well-established tradition of the sternest competition for its league title and its knock-out trophy, the Priestley Cup. As in the First World War, the Bradford League flourished, even though clubs lost many of their regular players to the forces, because they were able to recruit Test and county cricketers living and working in the area. In the 1940 season, for example, more than twenty first-class cricketers played regularly in the league, as well as irregulars fitting in an odd game or two while on home leave. Saturday afternoon crowds at matches could often see games with two or three first-class players on each side. Saltaire itself was one of the best known and renowned Bradford League clubs, founded in 1869. Well known players who have played for the club, before or since Copson’s connection, include 60 World War Two 26 Directions given to people under the emergency provisions could be rather arbitrary. The reader might reasonably suspect the hand of a Derbyshire supporter behind the Civil Service decision to send Copson to a town close to Bradford. More prosaically, the Ministry of Supply opened a large new Royal Ordnance plant, making shell cases and bullets, at Steeton, near Keighley in 1941, about four miles from Shipley: at one stage of the war, it had nearly 4,000 employees.