Champions > Richard Perkins

RICHARD PERKINS

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With twelve Island Championship titles – twice that of the next-best marksman – achieved over a span of 36 years between 1976 and 2012, Richard Perkins’ mastery of the Fort Le Marchant range remains unparalleled. Whilst new eras of marksmen came and went over the decades, Richard persisted as a constant presence at the top of Guernsey shooting until his retirement from the sport in 2016.

Like many club members before him, Richard started shooting at Elizabeth College. Whilst he continued to shoot after leaving the College in 1967, it was not until nine years later that Richard broke through to win his first Island Championship title.

Richard (seated, far right), pictured with a local pistol club in 1973

Titles two and three followed in quick succession in 1977, in which Richard also won his first Channel Islands Championship, and 1978.

Upon winning his first of three Guernsey Grand Aggregate trophies in 1983, Perkins became the first marksman to win the Island Championship, the Grand Aggregate and the Channel Islands Championship.

By 1988, Richard had matched Tommy Henry’s previous record of six Island crowns. Title number six would have come even sooner had it not been for Bob Courtney, Richard’s contemporary and often closest rival, who won 5 titles in six years between 1981 and 1986.

Richard (bottom left) with the winning Guernsey Rifle Club team for the NRA Match in 1987

Richard responded to the challenge, winning six titles in eight years from 1988 to 1995 to move head and shoulders clear on a scarcely-believable eleven championship titles. Seventeen years later, in 2012, Perkins triumphed again to win his twelfth and final Island Championship.

Despite his unrivalled local achievements, Richard made just one appearance in the Queen’s Hundred, finishing 38th in 1979. He shot in the Kolapore twelve times, top scoring twice, and represented the island at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Alberta, Canada and at the 2015 Island Games in Jersey.

Richard shooting in the 2013 Island Championship

Text by Charlie Brewin, last updated 2024.