Patrick Jourdain

Patrick David Jourdain (1 November 1942 – 28 July 2016) was a British bridge player, teacher and journalist.

Over six decades he played in more than seventy international matches for Wales, more than any other player.

During his time at Peterhouse he became secretary of the Cambridge University Bridge Club, and he played in the 1964 match against Oxford.

In 1965, a player in the trials for the Welsh bridge team was taken ill.

Jourdain (by now living in Wales owing to his job with GKN) was called in as a substitute, and he and his partner won the trials.

The selectors had undertaken that the winners would be given a match in the Camrose Trophy, the competition for the constituent countries of the United Kingdom.

He therefore made his international debut in a match against Northern Ireland played in Belfast in early 1966, aged 23 and the youngest ever player for Wales.

He subsequently became a regular on the Welsh team over a period of six decades.

In 1973 he was promoted to run a team in Glasgow designing computer systems.

Four years later he decided it would be viable for him to switch to playing, writing about and teaching bridge full-time.

This came as a surprise to British Steel, which had marked him out as a future senior manager.

He was a golfer and tennis player, and a committed Christian.

He never married.

He died in Cardiff after a short and unexpected illness that proved to be pancreatic cancer.

In 1976, now based in Glasgow, he won the Gold Cup, the most prestigious British domestic competition.

He played two matches for Scotland the following year, helping the side to win the Camrose Trophy.

The annual match between Scotland and Wales now has a trophy named after him.

It was at this time that he gave up his career with British Steel, and returned to Cardiff to manage the city's bridge club as well as becoming bridge correspondent of the Western Mail.

He also started producing the copy for the TV company Channel 4's teletext bridge section.

In 1982 he was appointed editor of the International Bridge Press Association (IBPA)’s bulletin, a post he held for twenty years.

The bulletin was the source of many of the hands featured in the world’s bridge columns, read by millions of players.

In the same year he became understudy to G. C. H. Fox, then the Daily Telegraph's bridge correspondent, reporting from each subsequent World and European Championship.

He was appointed bridge correspondent ten years later when Fox retired from the role (though Fox continued as bridge columnist).

When in China he played bridge with Deng Xiaoping.

He was subsequently commissioned to write the Chairman's obituary for the Telegraph.

Over the years he wrote several stories that made the Telegraph's front page.

He was bridge correspondent of the Daily Telegraph from 1992 until his death.

His World Bridge Federation obituary described him as "the bridge-journalist’s journalist".

According to the English Bridge Union's death notice: "Ever the dedicated journalist, he penned his own obituary to ensure that the media would have their copy in timely fashion."

He was born in Woking.

He was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he obtained a degree in Physics and Natural Sciences.

On leaving university he joined GKN in Cardiff as an operational researcher.

The company was nationalised as British Steel shortly after he joined it.

In 1999 Tony Haworth was found guilty of cheating by the Welsh Bridge Union (WBU) and suspended for ten years.

As well as Jourdain's story featuring on the paper's front page it was picked up by the world's media.

In addition to writing the story, he was a key figure in Haworth's exposure, having spent months gathering evidence.

His story about a computer coming fifth in a field of top bridge players in solving bridge problems also made the front page.

"Today my words have been read by more people than saw Shakespeare when he was alive!"

he told a friend.

The friend allegedly replied: "Ah, but how many will remember your words two hundred years after you are dead?"