The A-Z of Derbyshire Cricket - C is for Copson: Bill Copson

When considering the best player to represent Derbyshire whose name began with the letter C, it is hard to disregard the claims of Sam Cadman, a worthy cricketer and a coach responsible for the production line of talent through the 1930s. Likewise those of Daryll Cullinan was a very fine batsman but in only one season. That being the case, there are only three real candidates.

Donald Carr was a fine player and captain of the county for a good part of the 1950s. Though probably just short of the top drawer as a batsman, Carr’s strokeplay was redolent of the true surfaces of the public school, rather than the green ones on which he played much of his cricket. He was also a useful spin bowler, but as a captain he got the best out of Cliff Gladwin and Les Jackson. Conversely, it could be said that with two bowlers of such ability, backed up with the likes of Derek Morgan, Edwin Smith and Harold Rhodes, he had some impressive resources to call upon. With one more batsman of ability alongside Carr and Arnold Hamer, we may well have won another championship during that decade, but it was not to be. Carr captained an England XI in India too, but highjinks involving an umpire cost him any possibility of a permanent role.

Second place for me would be Dominic Cork. A man who polarised the fans, Cork’s combative personality and skills saw him win a good number of matches but lose a few friends over the years. Like Kim Barnett before him, Cork’s tenure as Derbyshire skipper saw high profile departures and a degree of acrimony, but few would argue that he was a player of rare talent.

No one who saw it will forget his innings at Lords against Lancashire, when an unpromising situation was turned into a winning one by Cork and Karl Krikken’s late onslaught. I don’t think Cork ever got the credit he deserved for the remarkable flick to fine leg (from off stump!) that he played off Wasim Akram in the final over. It was a shot that saw acclaim rain down on Viv Richards when he played it, and for me was an iconic moment that laid down the gauntlet to our opponents. Whether you liked or disliked Cork’s public persona,  most sides would be strengthened by his inclusion.

He has become an outstanding commentator on the game since retirement, unafraid to say what others might think. Spiky and articulate, Cork has been a very good player and will leave a lasting impression on the media.

Yet not quite good enough to take my top spot, which goes to Bill Copson. The coal miner from Clay Cross suffered periodic bouts of ill health and injury that truncated several seasons. But when he was fit, as he was throughout the championship season of 1936, he was deadly. There were 140 wickets at 13 that summer for Copson, who maintained the typically Derbyshire ‘grudging’ line and length that he married to rare hostility. His run was not excessive, but his long arms and 'whippy' action got considerable leverage.

The tactic for most of the decade was simple. If Bill (and brothers George and Alf Pope) could make inroads to the early opposition batting, Tommy Mitchell and Les Townsend would make short work of the lower order and tail. Over a thousand wickets at just under 19 suggests that Copson did that a few times over the years.

Indeed, for his first few overs he was perhaps as quick as any domestically-reared Derbyshire bowler until Harold Rhodes and Alan Ward burst onto the scene. Les Jackson was hostile, quicker than he looked, but Copson at full fitness gained excessive bounce and extravagant movement that destroyed batting line-ups.

Two examples of his prowess will suffice. Against Surrey at the County Ground in May 1936, a Derbyshire batting collapse (it has been known…) left the visitors chasing just 94 to win. At 49-2 they were coasting it at tea, but afterwards Copson ripped through the batting, taking 7-19 in 14 overs, five of his victims bowled and one lbw. A Derbyshire win by 16 runs looked barely possible, yet arguably served as the catalyst to the season. The following year he took 8-11 against Warwickshire, including seven wickets in 23 balls.

I once saw Derbyshire cricket in the period beautifully encapsulated within a paragraph. I cannot recall the author, but the essence was that there was a good crowd, a close field, a green wicket and a sense of expectation as Copson prepared to open the bowling. A shout came from an excited member of the crowd, the first word pronounced in the Derbyshire manner, to rhyme with howl and suggest that Copson was set to eviscerate the opposition.

“Bow-el boogers aht, Bill!”

He often did.

Copson didn't play cricket until he was 17, bowling a batsman with his first ball, a feat he was to repeat in the first-class game when he dismissed the England batsman Andrew Sandham of Surrey. On both occasions the prodigious movement was deemed a fluke, but that ceases to be the case when you’ve done it a few hundred times.

The excellent Basil Easterbrook, a fine cricket writer, described him thus:

His run up to the wicket was an easy affair and he seemed to hesitate fractionally before releasing the ball. He looked deceptively slow through the air, but he could make the ball swing and swerve either way very late and he also seemed to make the ball gather pace off the pitch. He either forced the batsman to make a hurried stroke or caught him totally unprepared. In his heyday he could bring the ball back so unexpectedly and so viciously that at times he was almost unplayable. Few men of pace in my lifetime have ever been able to extract so much out of an easy-paced, even lifeless, pitch.

His back problems, a result of his work down the pit, resulted in an unusual gait, often described as a ‘trudge.’

“Bill, tha bloody walks like Groucho Marx,” said Denis Smith, watching him walk from third man to bowl one day.

“Aye, and sometimes tha bloody bats like him,” replied the bowler, a laconic man, his face deadpan under a shock of red hair.

Nine wickets at Lords and 3-33 at Old Trafford against the 1939 West Indians suggested that Copson could have become a good international player, but his only other Test appearance came against South Africa in 1947, when he was 39 and past his prime. Nonetheless, three wickets saw him far from disgraced. That he headed the bowling averages on the 1936-7 tour to Australia and still didn’t play a Test speaks volumes for the selectors of the time; even more for a very good cricketer.

With better luck with health and fitness and without the loss of six seasons to the war, Bill Copson could have put the Derbyshire record for most wickets taken out of reach. Some have since surpassed his aggregate, but few better bowlers have worn the county colours.

Book Review - Bill Copson: More Than Miner Interest by Kit Bartlett

The latest book I have been sent for review is not new. Kit Bartlett's book on Derbyshire fast-bowling legend Bill Copson was first published in 2008, but it perhaps slipped under the radar of many Derbyshire fans.

The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians do great work within the game, especially with their publications programme, which often sees books produced on players who would never capture the imagination of the big players in world publishing. Nonetheless, their tales are worth the telling, more so than the ten-a-penny big name autobiographies which often are too formulaic for my taste.

Bill Copson was a very fine bowler, albeit one too often troubled by injury for some. He got three Test caps, two in 1939 and the other in 1947, when he was 39 years old. That those Tests produced 15 wickets was no mean feat, but the feeling remains that Copson's sketchy fitness record was a factor in him getting limited recognition. Only in 1936 and 1939 did he remain injury-free, but those two years saw him take 160 and 146 wickets at 15 and 13 respectively. He was not quite fast, but hostile and awkward, like Les Jackson later, obtaining extravagant movement from a whippy action. Of his 1094 first-class victims, the major percentage were bowled, an unusual state of affairs, while his season average never exceeded 19.81 per wicket prior to the Second World War.

That injury-free season in 1936 was a major factor in the only Championship win, together with the similarly impressive form of Tommy Mitchell. Their "brimstone and treacle" saw Derbyshire to eventual triumph and the latter would be another worthy subject of an ACS publication. Indeed, it is in that area where the book has its only failing. There are a number of stories about Mitchell as a "character" non-pareil, something that enlivens any read. While this book has been well researched and is as well annotated as all of the ACS series, by the end of it I felt I knew little more of Copson the man than when it started. He was lugubrious and by all accounts a private individual, yet even the input of his son reveals little of his personality.

Perhaps the most enlightening section is that covering the war years. Copson spent those in the leagues with considerable success, though not enough for the secretary of Shipley CC, who referred to him as either "very brilliant or very poor" at the same time that he slated other players at the club, including Les Ames, Denis Smith, Alf Pope and Learie Constantine. Nothing about Copson the bowler was poor and even when the 'nip' had gone post-war, he retained an ability to make scoring difficult and, like all Derbyshire's best seamers, "gave nowt away".

At 92 pages it is not a weighty tome, but for those who, like me, enjoy reading about the greats of the past it is well worth buying. There are some interesting photographs and statistics and - let's be honest - books on Derbyshire cricketers are not overly abundant. Cliff Gladwin, George Pope and Tommy Mitchell would be worthy future subjects for the series.

Hopefully there's someone out there of similar opinion...

Bill Copson: More Than Miner Interest is written by Kit Bartlett and published by the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. It can be purchased for £10 from the ACSH at

http://acscricket.com/?page_id=68

Best of the Cs

There are three realistic candidates for the best Derbyshire player beginning with the letter C. One of them isn’t Rikki Clarke…

The club site rightly pays tribute to Sam Cadman, a worthy cricketer and a coach responsible for the production line of talent through the 1930s, while Daryll Cullinan was a fine batsman in but one season. There are, however, only three real candidates.

In third place, Donald Carr was a very fine player and captain of the county for a good part of the 1950s. Though probably just short of the top drawer as a batsman, Carr’s strokeplay was redolent of the true surfaces of the public school rather than the green ones on which he played much of his cricket. He was also a useful spin bowler, but as a captain he got the best out of Gladwin and Jackson. Conversely, it could be said that with two bowlers of such ability, backed up with the likes of Derek Morgan, Edwin Smith and Harold Rhodes, he had some impressive resources to call upon. Had we had one more batsman of ability alongside Carr and Arnold Hamer we may well have won another Championship during that decade, but it was not to be Carr captained an England XI in India too, but highjinks involving an umpire probably cost him any possibility of a permanent role.

Second place for me would be Dominic Cork. A man who polarised the fans, Cork’s combative personality and skills saw him win a good number of matches but lose a few friends over the years. Like Kim Barnett before him, Cork’s tenure as Derbyshire skipper saw some high profile departures and a degree of acrimony, but few would doubt that he was (and still is) a player of great talent.

No one who saw it will forget his innings at Lords against Lancashire, when an unpromising situation was turned into a winning one by Cork and Karl Krikken’s late onslaught. I don’t think Cork ever got the credit he deserved for the remarkable flick to fine leg (from off stump!) that he played off Wasim Akram in the final over. It was a shot that saw acclaim rain down on Viv Richards when he played it, and for me was a nigh-iconic moment that laid down the gauntlet to our opponents. Whether you liked or disliked Cork’s public persona, few would dispute that most sides would be strengthened by his inclusion.

I also think he will become an outstanding commentator on the game when he finally retires, being unafraid to say what others might be thinking. Spiky and articulate, Cork at his best has been very good indeed.

Yet not quite good enough to take my top spot, which goes to Bill Copson. The coal miner from Clay Cross suffered periodic bouts of ill health and injury that truncated several seasons, but when he was fit, as he was throughout the Championship season of 1936, he was deadly. There were 140 wickets at 13 that summer for Copson, who maintained the typically Derbyshire ‘grudging’ line and length that he married to rare hostility. His run was not excessive, but his long arms and whippy action got considerable leverage.

The tactic for most of the decade was simple. If Bill (and brothers George and Alf Pope) could make inroads to the early opposition batting, Tommy Mitchell and Les Townsend would make short work of the lower order and tail. Over a thousand wickets at just under 19 suggests that Copson did that a few times over the years.

Indeed, for his first few overs he was perhaps as quick as any domestically-reared Derbyshire bowler until Alan Ward burst onto the scene. Harold Rhodes was lively in his earlier days and Les Jackson hostile and whippy, quicker than he looked, but Copson at full fitness gained both excessive bounce and extravagant movement that destroyed batting line-ups.

Two examples of his prowess will suffice. Against Surrey at the County Ground in May 1936, a Derbyshire batting collapse (it has been known…) left the visitors chasing just 94 to win. At 49-2 they were coasting it at tea, but afterwards Copson ripped through the batting, taking 7-19 in 14 overs, five of his victims bowled and one lbw. A Derbyshire win by 16 runs looked barely possible, yet arguably served as the catalyst to the season. The following year he took 8-11 against Warwickshire, including seven wickets in 23 balls.

I once saw Derbyshire cricket in the period beautifully encapsulated within a paragraph. I cannot recall the author, but the essence was that there was a good crowd, a close field, a green wicket and a sense of expectation as Copson prepared to open the bowling. A shout often came from an excited member of the crowd, the first word pronounced in the Derbyshire way, to rhyme with howl and suggest that Copson was about to eviscerate the opposition.

“Bow-el the boogers aht Bill.” He often did.

Copson never played cricket until he was 17, bowling a batsman with his first ball, a feat he was to repeat in the first-class game when he dismissed the England batsman Andrew Sandham of Surrey. On both occasions the prodigious movement was deemed a fluke, but that ceases to be the case when you’ve done it a few hundred times.

The excellent Basil Easterbrook, a fine cricket writer, described him thus:

His run up to the wicket was an easy affair and he seemed to hesitate fractionally before releasing the ball. He looked deceptively slow through the air, but he could make the ball swing and swerve either way very late and he also seemed to make the ball gather pace off the pitch. He either forced the batsman to make a hurried stroke or caught him totally unprepared. In his heyday he could bring the ball back so unexpectedly and so viciously that at times he was almost unplayable. Few men of pace in my lifetime have ever been able to extract so much out of an easy-paced, even lifeless, pitch.

His back problems, a result of his work down the pit, probably resulted in an unusual gait, often described as a ‘trudge.’

“Bill, tha bloody walks like Groucho Marx,” said Denis Smith, watching him walk from third man to bowl one day.

“Aye, and sometimes tha bloody bats like him,” replied the bowler, a laconic man, his face deadpan under a shock of red hair.

Nine wickets at Lords and 3-33 at Old Trafford against the 1939 West Indians suggested that Copson could have become a good international player, but his only other Test appearance came against South Africa in 1947, when he was 39 and past his prime. Nonetheless, three wickets saw him far from disgraced. That he headed the bowling averages on the 1936-7 tour to Australia and still didn’t play a Test speaks volumes for the selectors of the time.

With better luck with health and fitness and without the loss of six seasons to the war, Bill Copson could have put the Derbyshire record for most wickets taken out of reach. A few have since surpassed his aggregate, but not many better bowlers have worn the county colours.

Derbyshire v Warwickshire 1937

After the glory of the Championship season of 1936, Derbyshire had problems in 1937.

The main one was injuries, with their two leading strike bowlers Bill Copson and Tommy Mitchell both being hors de combat for a fair part of the season. Copson had an array of little niggles, including a spell of illness and a knee problem, while Mitchell broke both a finger and a thumb. Although George Pope played more often than had been the case on the Championship season, most of which he missed with a knee injury, the attack lost its balance and spearhead.

Nevertheless the side managed to finish a creditable third. Denis Smith was just short of 2,000 runs, Stan Worthington made nearly 1800 while George Pope scored 1318 runs and took 92 wickets for good measure.

At Edgbaston early in the season, Warwickshire scored over 500 against Derbyshire, their international pairing of Bob Wyatt (232) and Tom Dollery (128) putting us to the sword.

When they arrived in Derby on July 19th it was a different game, although it looked a good wicket. When captain Alan Skinner won the toss he hoped for early life and asked the opposition to bat first.

Bill Copson was fit and began the attack from the Nottingham Road End, while youngster "Dusty" Rhodes (father of Harold) was given the cherry at the old pavilion end. Younger readers should note that the square has been turned around since those days...

Bill usually bowled downhill because of his greater speed and in his first two overs removed opening batsman Hill and the man who replaced him, Santall. The former was caught close in, with the second being clean bowled. After five overs he had 3-5, opening batsman Norman Kilner being caught by the captain. When Alf Pope replaced Rhodes after four wicketless overs, he bowled "Vic" Buckingham, a hard hitting batsman and then bowled Wyatt for 231 less than he had made at Edgbaston.

In Bill's seventh over he bowled Jimmy Ord, batting at number seven but a good batsman and the visitors hopes were pinned on Dollery, the remaining batsman of any consequence. Copson's eight over saw him bowl Dollery with the fifth ball and then repeat the feat with the final ball of the over.

After a maiden over by Pope, Bill took his hat trick by clean bowling Bill Fantham and with his next ball he did the same to Eric Hollies, the latter a very fine bowler but the stereotype number eleven. The Derbyshire bowler had taken four wickets in four balls and finished with the extraordinary figures of 8.2-2-11-8.

Alf Pope took the other two for five runs in four overs and the talk at lunchtime was what might have happened had he (or brother George) been given the new ball instead of the youngster Rhodes!

Warwickshire were all out for 28, with Copson taking his wickets with the ultimate combination of speed, swing both ways and lift.

When Derbyshire batted they hit hard, aware of the fact that there was more than a little in the wicket. Les Townsend made 52, Rhodes made 58 and numbers ten and eleven, Mitchell and Copson hit some fine shots in scoring 21 and 30 respectively, Bill's unbeaten innings containing seven boundaries and being a season-best.

There was still time for Warwickshire to start their second innings and Copson bowled Kilner with his second ball to extend his figures to five in six balls, then he bowled Santall for the second time in the match to finish the day with six wickets in thirteen balls.

Although Warwickshire battled hard on the second day, Hill making a century and Dollery 98, they were all out for 291 with Copson finishing with 3-82 (11-93 in the match). Tom Mitchell leggies were rewarded with 5-80 and Derbyshire were left needing just 93 to win. These were knocked off before the close for the loss of five wickets, all of them going to veteran seamer Joe Mayer who finished with match figures of 10-122 but on the losing side.

I'm sure that all Derbyshire fans would love to see Charl Langeveldt replicate those figures on Thursday - just as long as the end result is the same!

(Photo shows Bill Copson -right - with fellow Derbyshire player Stan Worthington - left - on the way back from the 1936-7 tour of Australia. The England squad visited the Selznick studios in Hollywood and they are awaiting the autograph of Hollywood legend and cricket fan Douglas Fairbanks Jr - with cigarette)