GRAHAM REES – CITY’S WELSH WIZARD

After a shaky start, February 1964 was a good month for the Grecians in their Division Four promotion push. And one man revelling in the improvement was long serving winger Graham Rees.

Graham, from Pontypridd, had joined the Grecians as a 17 year old in 1954. Unusually he was a part timer for much of his career, while he trained and then worked as an accountant.

Rees played in every League game bar one and scored six goals including two in February; one in a 2-1 win at home against Hartlepools United and one in a 1-1 draw at Darlington. The latter according to Tony Court in the Express and Echo was a ‘neat header’. The former settled crowd nerves with Court observing  that, after some City supporters ‘had gone home in disgust’, Rees ‘bobbed up four minutes from time to crack the winner’.

City were maintaining their high League position and Graham was enjoying himself. Looking back in Mike Blackstone’s book ‘Grecians going up’, Graham said “Although I was really a left winger, and more comfortable there, I played on the right throughout the 1963/64 season. I even kept Eric Welsh out of the side, and he was to go on to play for Northern Ireland when he later moved to Carlisle United.

“I also had to play defensively as well when needed, for right back Cecil Smyth used to bomb forward when the opportunity arose and I had to drop back as cover”. 

Reflecting on the promotion season Graham (pictured) told a meeting of the Senior Reds (available to watch on the Grecian Archive website) that the team was “a fairly defensive outfit but we were all triers. We just needed a spearhead up front”.  With the signing of Alan Banks “we found what we needed – a sharp edge up front”.

As an accountant it is no surprise that the players chose Reesto be one of their spokesmen to negotiate a bonus scheme with the board. The result, in the first half of the season, was that every time the crowd rose above 5,000 there would be a reward. “It may not sound like much, but when it comes in, £1 or £2 extra payments in your pay packet each week, it is quite useful” Graham told the Echo. “The players have been quite pleased with the new scheme”.  

In a 12 year career at St James Park Graham played 370 League and Cup games, scoring 92 goals. He was inducted into the City Hall of Fame in 2017.   

Promotion Factfile

City didn’t play tonight’s opponents Peterborough in the promotion season. The Posh were in Division 3. They had only become members of the League in 1960, replacing Gateshead. But they immediately won promotion and beat City 4-3 and 7-1 along the way.