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. 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 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.

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.

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