Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

they do not obviously have the time away from the field of play that players do. Physical fitness and good eyesight are obviously very important factors. On the list of twenty three umpires which Bill Copson joined this season, there were two of his former county colleagues, Harry and Charlie Elliott. A.E.G.Rhodes was to join the list in 1959. George Pope joined the first-class list later, in 1966. Umpires at this period were chosen by the seventeen first-class county captains and reports on their performances were made by them after each match. Bill’s first game was at Edgbaston on 10, 12 and 13 May when he partnered Emrys Davies, the well known Glamorgan all-rounder, in the championship match between Warwickshire and Sussex. Altogether Bill officiated in 241 first-class matches, and after the start of the Gillette Cup in 1963, ten inter-county limited-overs matches. 39 Typically his workload comprised of twenty four first-class matches in a season, most of them in the county championship, with an occasional University or tourist game. The duties at the time included overseeing the progress of the match in accordance with the Laws of the Game and the Notes about the Laws, securing compliance with the regulations for first-class cricket, and securing compliance with regulations for drying the pitch and ground. Umpires were not at that time permitted to stand in any matches involving their former counties, so that Bill Copson’s games were in effect almost always away from home, driving his Austin A55 Cambridge from one ground to the next. First-class matches were, at that time, of three days duration, so that three or four times a year he umpired two matches ‘back to back’ in a week at the same venue. He was never selected to stand in a representative or festival match and never reached the pinnacle of selection as a Test umpire, though he stood occasionally in the popular International Cavaliers matches. He had a reputation as an umpire who fully understood the ups and downs of both Test and county cricket, which players appreciated. Tony Brown and other first-class players have said he made his decisions calmly and firmly, without any sense of being officious or obtrusive: he had a sense of fair play. He was regarded as a quiet, but capable and straightforward umpire, though perhaps not quite in the top flight. When he eventually retired in 1967 after Umpiring and Retirement 79 39 In matches now designated as List A. He also stood in the experimental Midland Counties competition, arranged by the Leicestershire club at the start of the 1962 season, from which the limited overs ‘formula’ was developed.