Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

Copson’s own bowling record for the year in the league from 143.3 overs was 59 wickets at an average of 6.59. Alf Pope took 69 wickets at 6.49. Unusually Bill flourished with the bat, scoring 189 runs from six completed innings with a top score of 67 not out. In a match against Great Horton, the car bringing Saltaire’s Derbyshire contingent of Copson, Pope and Leslie Townsend broke down, and in their absence a promising young player, named Laker, took five wickets. George Pope and Denis Smith both appeared for Lidget Green, who played in Division A. For the 1942 season, Bill, Alf Pope and Wilson all transferred to the Windhill club, based in Shipley, who had won Division A for the previous five seasons. They replaced the mighty Trinidadian Learie Constantine, who had moved to Liverpool, where he had a job in the Ministry of Labour dealing with the welfare of West Indians. It was reported that Constantine received a fee of £25 a match when he played for Windhill in 1940 and 1941. 28 The move by Copson and Pope set off a local controversy, and it was said that Windhill had ‘poached’ them. The players themselves were described as ‘mercenaries.’ Windhill had, though, acted within the League’s rules which forbade approaches to other club’s players during the season and had signed them up in October, 1941. Windhill were a wealthier club than many others in the league, and its officials were unrepentant, telling the local Press that ‘If we had the League’s two best bowlers in our side, we should not have let them slip away if it could have been avoided. We were within our rights in all negotiations.’ Because of the crowds attracted by their matches, the clubs had suddenly become commercial entities: the Derbyshire players and, later on, the other professionals were the beneficiaries of the new circumstances. Eventually the League changed its rules to give clubs more time to negotiate with their existing professionals at the end of each season. 29 62 World War Two 28 For comparison, the average adult male wage for a manual worker in 1940 was £4/12/- (£4.60) per week. 29 It should not be thought that the clubs were overawed by the fame of their players. At the Windhill club’s Annual General Meeting in 1943, the secretary Norman Bailey told the assembled company, with the Press present: ‘In the past season Windhill had “nearly a team that could challenge an England side” but most had been disappointing.’ Referring to players who had played in 1943 and earlier seasons he said Kippax was ‘moderate to good’; Denis Smith ‘very disappointing’; Ord ‘very disappointing and depressed over his luck’; Constantine ‘very erratic with his batting’; Ames ‘very patchy and nothing like the standard we expected’; Alf Pope ‘good with his batting’, his bowling ‘good without being destructive’; Copson both ‘very brilliant and very poor’. He said of the reserve Derbyshire wicket-keeper George Beet that he ‘came to us with a very strong recommendation from MCC. We were very disappointed and advised him not to make any further journeys from the Midlands.’