Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

hand, lifted the child onto the bank with the other. He climbed out onto the bank and went away. It was all over in a few seconds.’ Other youngsters who were with the child ‘gazed on the retreating form of the rescuer’ with amazement. The incident was seen by an office worker looking out of a window in a nearby mill who recognised Copson and told the local Press. On the cricket field, he produced many effective and match-winning spells of bowling. He was an active fieldsman and not one to complain about his aches and pains. The part that he played in Derbyshire’s championship trophy win in 1936 was considerable and it is fair to say that the team could not have achieved this success without his considerable contributions throughout that season. Donald Carr says that he was always popular with his fellow county players and was an excellent team man, never criticising others openly and rarely complaining about his own circumstances. In his early years with Derbyshire he had suffered a fair amount of back trouble, but the County Club went to great lengths to have this remedied by sending him to various specialists. Because of the war intervention he played in a total of only twelve first-class seasons; eight from 1932 to 1939 and a further four from 1946 to 1949, plus one match in 1950. His overall career bowling record was impressive: 1,094 wickets at an average of 18.96 runs in 279 first-class matches. After his successful Test Match debut in 1939 he was very unlucky to have been dropped from the side after just two appearances. Although appearing in a Test Trial in 1948 he was never to play in Test matches again. As a tail end batsman he did not often get much chance to display any batting ability, nor was he expected to shine. E.W.Swanton once sternly described his batting as ‘low in the rabbit class.’ He did, though, take part in three fifty partnerships in his career, all for the tenth wicket, with a highest score of forty three made in his second season in the first-class game. These batting performances no doubt gave him much pleasure and amusement. We may perhaps place him as one of a group of four Derbyshire pace bowlers of his time whose talents received insufficient Test recognition. The others are Les Jackson, who famously played only twice for England; Cliff Gladwin eight, though five were overseas; and George Pope, just once. It may fairly be said of all these that, if they had played for a more ‘fashionable’ county than Derbyshire, then they might well have made many more Test Match 84 Umpiring and Retirement