During his time as treasurer, chair and president of the Welsh Rugby Union he became a towering and sometimes controversial figure who became known throughout Wales simply as ‘Glanmor’.
It was his drive and steely determination to deliver the Millennium Stadium project, as it was originally known, on time and within budget that enabled Wales to host the 1999 Rugby World Cup. Many thought it was an impossible task to get the building ready for the tournament, but he confounded the ‘Doubting Thomases’ by delivering on time for the opening game between Wales and Argentina.
“Welsh rugby owes Glanmor Griffiths a huge debt for all his work on delivering what is now Principality Stadium. At the time it was one of the biggest engineering projects in western Europe and what it has delivered to the nation since 1999 has been incredible,” said WRU chair Richard Collier-Keywood.
“Having filled three of the highest chains of office at the WRU – treasurer, chair and President – over a period of more than 20 years of service to the game in Wales, his imprint will forever be evident in the history of the WRU.
“We thank him for his immense contribution to Welsh rugby and offer sincere condolences to his family and friends.”
Over time it has become the most iconic building in Wales that has delivered a near £3 billion financial return to the Welsh economy. It has been the bedrock of record financial returns for the WRU in recent years, and it cost a mere £130m compared to the near £1 billion it cost to rebuild Wembley Stadium.
His shrewd negotiating skills enabled Wales to host games at both the 2007 and 2015 World Cups under a reciprocity agreement, and his securing of a fixed price contract for design, build and delivery of the Stadium proved a masterstroke.
Glanmor Griffiths at the roof opening in The Millennium Stadium on 22nd September 1999
Adrian Ewer, the group financial chairman of John Laing plc, admitted in 1999 that the £26m losses his company incurred were down to building the stadium. “We got it wrong in the bidding,” he admitted when referring to the guaranteed maximum price negotiated by Glanmor.
Earlier in his reign as treasurer he resigned on 3 December 1992, yet by April 1993 he had been re-appointed by the clubs at a Special General Meeting.
Glanmor followed in the footsteps of Vernon Pugh as WRU chair, a post he held between 1996-2003, and was also chair of Millennium Stadium plc up to 2003. He also represented the WRU on the International Rugby Board, Five Nations and Four Home Unions committees and was a board member of Rugby World Cup Ltd.
He was a trustee of the Rugby Charitable Trust between 1985 and 2003. He became the 48th WRU president between May-October 2007 in the wake of the death of Keith Rowlands.
Born on 21 December 1939 in Bridgend as the third of seven children, he initially lived in Blackmill. He went to Ogmore Grammar School but left at 16 to join the Midland Bank. His career at the bank took him to Paddock Wood, Tonypandy, Llandough, Bridgend and then to Ascot, while he was working in London. Having met his future wife, Mair, at a dance in Porthcawl, they married in 1964 and had four children.
When Mair developed breast cancer in the early eighties the family returned to south Wales, where Glanmor became a bank manager in Cardiff and then Midland Bank Corporate Director (Wales). He took early retirement at the age of 50 and in 1985 turned all his energies into Welsh rugby when he became treasurer of the WRU in succession to Ken Harris.
Neil Jenkins scores the first points at the new stadium
In the week before the Stadium staged its first game, a test event against South Africa on 26 June 1999, Glanmor arranged for some posts to be erected, and invited Neil Jenkins to become the first player to kick at the new home of Welsh rugby.
“I wanted the first points, so to speak, at the new stadium to be kicked by a Welshman,” he said. He needn’t have worried. Wales beat the Springboks for the first time in their history a few days later with Jenkins notching the first points and Mark Taylor scoring the first try in a sensational 29-19 victory.
Glanmor is survived by his wife, four children (Stephen, Kathryn, Susan and Judith), 11 grandchildren and one great grandchild.
GLANMOR GRIFFITHS ON THE BUILDING THE STADIUM:
““You had to go back to 1994 for the first discussions about what we were going to do with the old National Ground, Cardiff Arms Park. Famous it might have been, but it was getting tired and out of date. The capacity was only 49,000 – 42,000 seated and 7,000 standing – and the hospitality and toilet facilities were simply not good enough.
Some wanted to tinker around with the existing stadium, but the bigger plan was to create something that would be the envy of the sporting world. To get to Plan B we needed the full support of the WRU clubs.
Their vote in backing our brave new world should never be underestimated. They knew money would be tight until the stadium began to deliver, but just look at what the returns are these days.
Many thought we would never get to the stage of being able to host the World Cup at our new home, never mind play a game in June. I often felt there were some who wanted to see the project fail, but the team I had working around me simply wouldn’t contemplate failure. Dick Larsen, Vernon Pugh, Pat Thompson and Russell Goodway were key characters in helping to deliver what was at the time the biggest engineering project in Europe.
With the World Cup being hosted for the first time by Wales we knew we had to test the capacity of the stadium as we built it in order to get the required safety certificate. We invited South Africa, France, Canada and the USA to come to Cardiff to play at the new Stadium. Well, in the case of the Springboks, a half-built stadium!
Glanmor Griffiths at the stadium for the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate his contribution to the building
The impact Graham Henry was having on the Welsh team at this time was transformational. There was that epic win over England at Wembley in the final Five Nations tournament and then a winning tour of Argentina. But when I told him we would be playing South Africa and France he said joking ‘are you trying to kill off this Welsh team?’ They were two of the best teams in the world at the time. Graham was another fantastic ally and under him things were beginning to look brighter on the pitch. The only problem was we didn’t have a home pitch for them to play on as yet!
The project team and our wonderful construction work force from the John Laing Group knew we had to pull a rabbit out of the hat to stage a game in June. We’d turned the pitch through 90 degrees, taken down four buildings surrounding the old Arms Park footprint and flooded the centre of Cardiff with more than 1,000 workers. To play the game we had to de-rig all the cranes and somehow get a pitch into the middle of the biggest building site in Wales.
As far as the pitch was concerned, we settled on a paletised system that was being used successfully in America. It had to be something of this kind in order to get a pitch in and out for those early games. My big concern was where to grow the grass. Might it be sabotaged in the build-up to the World Cup if it was public knowledge where it was being grown and stored? In a bid to go for maximum security we approached RAF St Athan and got them to store the pallets and grow the grass between their runways. They had a perimeter fence and armed guards – perfect!
It took dozens of low loaders to bring the pallets into the stadium. Once the biggest jigsaw in the world had been pieced together, they had to unlock it and take it back to St Athan only hours after the game had finished. To say I was nervous would be an understatement.
We had to play four games with increased capacities in order to get up to the full 74,500 safety certificate for the opening game of the World Cup. We only had space for 28,000 against South Africa, but none of them, me included, will ever forget what they saw that day.
The pitch came during the week of the game and on the Thursday, I learned that the workmen were taking bets on who was going to kick the first points through the new posts. I wanted to ensure the first person to put the ball between the uprights was a Welshman and so I got Neil Jenkins to come down and do the honours with all the workers watching him. They gave him a huge roar, but nothing like the roar he received a few days later when he actually became the first points scorer at the Stadium when he kicked a penalty to put Wales ahead in only the second minute of the match.
Before the kick-off the Webb Ellis Cup was brought onto the field by the man who had received it from Nelson Mandela in 1995, Francois Pienaar, and our own Gareth Edwards. That moment sent a shiver down my spine, and I realised that the confidence with which I had told the world we would have a stadium ready in time was not misplaced. It was a taste of what was to come a few months later when the trophy was presented by HRH Queen Elizabeth to Australia’s winning captain, John Eales.”
