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Richard Heald

From Countdown
Revision as of 16:53, 5 July 2017 by JohnnyCanuck (talk | contribs) (factoid -- thanks GC)
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.

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