News
Mary Lister Obituary
09/04/2025 00:00, In Blog /
It is with great sadness that we report the death on 4 April of the Cardiff Club life member Mary Lister at the age of 87. Husband John, one of the leading lights of European athletics died in 2023.
Son Mark, whose involvement with the club brought his mother to the club said: “She enjoyed her athletics over so many years with John and through her involvement with the Cardiff Club. She was so grateful for this and the close friends she made and the people she met as a result.”
She was awarded the Welsh Athletics Meritorious Award in 2009 in recognition of her services to athletics in Wales.
Mary was a committee member of the Cardiff Club for well over half a century and her main focus during this time was as the leading light in running the club canteen, a vital part of the club, not only for its fund raising for club activities, but as the social point on club training evenings and competition days.
Come rain or shine, it was Mary, along with the late Kath Evans who would be in charge of the canteen, initially at Maindy Stadium in the early 1970s and then on the opening of the first Leckwith Stadium and subsequently the current Cardiff clubroom at Cardiff International Sports Stadium, Mary would be the welcoming and ever-present face behind the counter.
The Cardiff clubhouse canteen, like a lot of sports clubs, is the main source of income to the Cardiff Club and without it there’s no doubt that the club would have struggled to operate. The canteen was so important that on some club nights, you would have the late Chair of the UK governing body Bill Evans and Mary’s husband John, the UK treasurer, manning the canteen. Such was the importance of the canteen.
Mary’s late husband John often said that he would not have been able to achieve what he did as one of Europe’s leading athletics administrators without Mary’s support as his constant companion at many of his official duties throughout Europe.
Mary was a much-loved mother, grandmother and great grandmother and everyone in the Cardiff Club and Welsh Athletics who knew her send their condolences to her family.
Written by Clive Williams.
James Williams, CEO of Welsh Athletics, shared:
Our sport is built around passionate volunteers – and no one demonstrated this like Mary Lister. She was an ever present at Cardiff Athletics Club, not only on club nights, but on the club committee for many years, and along with late husband John, would be a regular supporter at league competitions.
During the recent European Indoor Championships in Holland, the CEO of European Athletics was enquiring about Mary – and spoke fondly of the long friendship he had with both John and Mary. It is testament to her passion that is so fondly remembered by everyone who had the pleasure of spending time with her.