Richard Heald

Richard in his quarter-final.

Richard Heald was an octochamp in Series 53.

Heald opened his account with a convincing victory over Amy McMaster on 2 June 2005, completing his run with 4 centuries. Despite scoring 795 points in total, this was only good enough to be #4 seed in the series finals. A nailbiter of a quarter-final saw Heald and Ross Allatt level on 90 points apiece going into the conundrum, which Heald unscrambled on 16 seconds to take a hard-earned semi-final place. Here he faced #1 seed John Brackstone in a match that again went to a crucial conundrum. This time Heald lost out after Brackstone took 10 seconds to unscramble RIPEROOTS.

Heald may have been the reserve contestant for Championship of Champions XII as a nameplate with his name on was seen on the monitor next to the tile-shuffling table to the side of the audience, but this is unconfirmed.

Heald was the last octochamp to be crowned with Richard Whiteley as the presenter. He is also notably the 15-round octochamp who has had the fewest nine-letter words available in his run; only one was available to him (namely, OUTRANGES in his second game), and he spotted it.

In 2015, he appeared as a team captain in the 11th series of Only Connect, and made his co-event debut at Countdown in Leeds 2016. He appeared on Eggheads in 2019.

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
3938	2/06/2005	P	Amy McMaster	58 – 92	Richard Heald	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Peter Baldwin	Susie Dent	125
3939	3/06/2005	P	Richard Heald	115 – 36	Michael Chidwick	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Peter Baldwin	Susie Dent	136
3940	6/06/2005	P	Richard Heald	93 – 58	Anne Hardy	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Peter Baldwin	Susie Dent	116
3941	7/06/2005	P	Richard Heald	104 – 58	Ross Gibson	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Peter Baldwin	Susie Dent	117
3942	8/06/2005	P	Richard Heald	89 – 73	Beryl Lawford	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Peter Baldwin	Susie Dent	120
3943	9/06/2005	P	Richard Heald	104 – 57	Karen Pearson	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Barry Norman	Susie Dent	118
3944	10/06/2005	P	Richard Heald	102 – 57	Alan Hicks	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Barry Norman	Susie Dent	117
3945	13/06/2005	P	Richard Heald	96 – 84	Paul Lyne	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Barry Norman	Susie Dent	116
3956	29/06/2005	QF	Richard Heald	100 – 90	Ross Allatt	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Philip Franks	Susie Dent	117
3957	30/06/2005	SF	Richard Heald	75 – 89	John Brackstone	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Philip Franks	Susie Dent	119