Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

be quite the essential player he had been for ten summers. * * * * * Another warm summer, 1949, was to be Bill’s last season in the first-class game and he was to announce his retirement at its end. He was now over forty years of age and could not expect to carry on for too much longer. He was awarded a testimonial this year in recognition of his outstanding services to the county and the fact that he was approaching the end of his career. 34 Copson was one of only four survivors of the 1936 side still playing, the others being Denis Smith, Arnold Townsend and Charlie Elliott. He received a total of £2,500, worth at 2008 values some £65,000. Although this amount seems small compared to the vast sums of money received by today’s very well paid top cricketers, it should be remembered that Derbyshire have always been one of the less financially well off counties, with a much smaller membership than the majority of clubs. Copson’s testimonial was, at the time, the highest in the county’s history, although it did not compare very favourably with other 1949 beneficiaries, such as Denis Compton, £12,200; Dick Pollard, £8,500;Tom Dollery, £6,362; and Eddie Watts £5,000. Above all else though, it gave him a degree of financial security unknown to earlier Copsons. Shortly after this, the family purchased and moved to 59, The Broadleys at Clay Cross, a small general provisions shop with living accommodation above it, Emily having kept up her interest in shopkeeping over the years. Perhaps they were concerned that Bill’s income would fall once he had left first-class cricket, and thought this would be a way of hedging against this. Bill had an injury free last season which was highly unusual for him. He appeared in all but one of Derbyshire’s Championship games, regularly opened the bowling and took sixty three wickets. However he managed to take five wickets in an innings on only three occasions, with five for 34 against Somerset at Taunton the best of these, where he had a match return of eight for 48. 74 Final First-Class Seasons 34 It was not Derbyshire’s practice at this time to reward leading professionals with a ‘benefit’, which usually gave players the opportunity of receiving the net gate receipts from a specific match. In 1947, Denis Smith, in his thirteenth full season with the county had a testimonial worth £1,970, and A.E.Alderman received £1,659 in 1948, after he had played regularly for thirteen seasons, although he played only seven matches in his testimonial year. Copson was perhaps older than many modern beneficiaries, but Derbyshire seem to have been treated him equitably by the standards of the time.