Smith played club hockey for City of Portsmouth and
Guildford before joining
Loughborough Students in the
Men's England Hockey League for the 2006/07 season. While at Loughborough he made his international debut in 2009. He also won gold at the
2009 EuroHockey Championship with England and played in the
2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. he was also part of the silver medal-winning England team that competed at the
2010 Men's Hockey Champions Trophy in
Mönchengladbach, Germany. He competed for
Great Britain at the
2012 Summer Olympics. After the Olympics he spent a year playing in Belgium for
Racing Club de Bruxelles before returning to England to play for
Hampstead & Westminster until 2020. On 16 June 2020, it was announced he joined
Klein Zwitserland in
The Hague for the 2020–21 season as he moved to the Netherlands. After one season in The Hague he retired from playing top-level hockey. After his retirement, he became the assistant coach of his former team at Klein Zwitserland. In 2024 he was appointed as the head coach of
HDM but on 14 March 2025, it was announced that Richard Smith and HDM had parted. == References ==