Obituary - Graham Spencer

It is with great sadness that we report the death in his Spanish home of former Welsh 1,500m champion Graham Spencer at the age of 64. He had been ill for some time.

He was one of a fine crop of Cardiff middle distance runners in the early 1970’s and such was Cardiff’s strength at the time sometimes he was not able to find a place in Cardiff’s British League team despite having a best time for 1,500m of 3:45.7 set in 1971. Over 40 years later, he would have walked into Cardiff’s team with this time.

Along with Bob Maplestone, Bernie Hayward and the late John Ingram, he was a member of the Cardiff 4 x 1,500m team that set a UK club’s record in 1970.

Born in Bridgend, he did his early running for Bridgend YMCA AC, but moved to Cardiff and joined Roath Harriers just before the amalgamation with Birchgrove to form Cardiff AAC in late 1968. He was a member of Cardiff’s winning British League team in the early 1970’s, but moved to the Midlands in the mid 1970’s and joined Tipton Harriers and was a member of their team that won the 12 stage relay.

One of the races of which he was most proud was when still a member of Bridgend he ran in a same medley relay team in a representative match for South Wales in Carmarthen with 1964 Olympic long jump champion, Lynn Davies; Welsh rugby great J.J. Williams and former British long  jump number one, Gwyn Williams.

Our sympathies are with his former wife Barbara – also a former Welsh champion and international, and sons Andrew and Elliot at this time.

A cremation has taken place in Spain.

Clive Williams