City Spice Girl barely missed (9)
I believe the answer is:
melbourne
'city' is the definition.
(Australian city)
'spice girl barely missed' is the wordplay.
'spice girl' becomes 'Mel B' (member of the Spice Girls).
'barely' means to look at the middle letters (the word is bare of its external letters).
'missed' becomes 'mourned' (missed after death).
The centre of 'mourned' is 'ourne'.
'melb'+'ourne'='MELBOURNE'
(Other definitions for melbourne that I've seen before include "State capital of Victoria" , "home for Victorians" , "Prime minister to William IV - setting for many an 6 test" , "First capital of Australia (1901-27)" , "PM 1834, 35-41" .)