Richard was given the title at a Meeting of the Surrey County ASA Council Meeting last night by the County’s President.

In the citation before the award Jim Boucher the County Secretary gave a synopsis of Richard’s many achievements:

Richard took over as Head Coach of Guildford City in 1998, when the Club was heavily in debt and a lowly 10th in the County. Since then he has presided over, and direct, the club’s rise to its 2015 second place in the National Arena Swimming League. Setting a goal of being the number one club in the County, he achieve this in 2002 and from 2004 has sustained a continued top ranking in the County. From 2006 his Club have consistently appeared in the Arena League Final, catching up and overtaking great names, but also metropolitan swimming organisations operated by local authorities along the way.

Success as a Club has seen a succession of elite swimmers rising through the ranks of National Age Group successes, selections for European Junior teams and ultimately the highest level where swimmers such as Marco Loughran and numerous other past swimmers have represented, GB, England and Wales at World, Olympic and Commonwealth Games.

Guildford City’s strength in depth has not only provided it with success as a Club, but underpinned Surrey’s strong finishes in the top division of the National Inter-County Competition. Since regionalisation, Richard has served as our County’s representative on the SE Region Coaching Group and has served as coach to GB Junior Squads.

Richard would be the first to say that success has come from a massive combined team effort with committee, coaching staff, swimmers and parents all working together. His passion and hunger for success, and his appetite for managing the day to day running of a membership based club has not diminished in any way. We as a County have benefited from this pursuit of excellence and today honour Richard as an Honorary Life Vice President.