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Birthdate:
05.04.1945
Birthplace: Liverpool, England
Other clubs: Swansea
Bought from: Local
Signed for LFC: £0 Professional 05.04.1962
International debut: 19.05.1971 vs. Wales
International caps: 1/0
Liverpool debut:
08.05.1963
Last appearance: 25.04.1978
Debut goal: 29.08.1964
Last goal: 08.04.1978
Contract expiry: August 1978
LFC league games/goals: 467 / 36
Total LFC games/goals: 638 / 48
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Player Notes:
Tommy Smith is Liverpool FC through and through. He worked as a groundsman at Anfield, was a player, captain, coach and only a handful of players have played more games than him for Liverpool. Tommy was born only a spitting distance from Anfield and as a 15-year-old his mum brought him to Shankly and told him to take good care of her son in May 1960. Tommy Smith became one of the toughest customers to ever wear the Liverpool shirt. But there was more to his game than tackling, he had an excellent technique and scored quite a few goals in his time, albeit some of them from the penalty spot. Smith played alongside Billy Liddell up front when he started out with the reserves and played his first 5 games of the 1964-65 season as a forward, scoring 2 goals. Smith was moved to centre of defence on 5th December 1964 vs. Burnley and never looked back.
Despite often wearing the No. 10 jersey, Tommy never was the inside-forward that his shirt number suggested, something which was to confuse foreign opponents who expected him to venture further upfield than he did! By the end of that season - and only just past his 20th birthday Tommy had become a regular member of the side and was present on the emotional day at Wembley when Liverpool won the FA cup for the first time in its history. For the next TEN years Smith was a fixture in the team. He only missed 41 out of 420 First Division fixtures and was able to claim the No. 4 shirt almost exclusively as his own. Later in his Liverpool career he played as right back until he lost his place to the up and coming Phil Neal.
Tommy shared in the remarkable success of the mid-60's but was young enough to survive the changes that inevitably came as the decade ended and Bill Shankly started to rebuild for the future. He saw in Tommy the leadership qualities that he knew would help and encourage younger players and new signings and made him captain in March 1970. Tommy held on to the armband until November 1973 following a row with Shankly as he was dropped from the starting 11 at Highbury. Tommy left the stadium and took the next train home to Liverpool. Tommy came close to leaving the club but soldiered on and quickly won his place back. Replaced by Emlyn Hughes as captain, Tommy moved back to right-back as Chris Lawler's Anfield career neared its end and after Shankly brought him back into the team a month after the Arsenal incident, he only missed one of the remaining 25 League games and collected his second FA cup winners' medal in the 3-0 win over Newcastle United, the biggest margin of victory in such a final since 1960.
Phil Neal's arrival threatened Tommy's place in the side but his versatility enabled him to cover either full-back position and also the centre of the defence. He was still a very valuable player to have around, despite by now being in his 30's. New manager Bob Paisley knew in any case all about his courage and strength and how intimidating he could be to opponents. Although he had a reputation of being a hard-man, his disciplinary record suggests otherwise. He was a hard tackler and he did play with aggression but he could hardly ever be accused of overstepping the line which divides tough play with dangerous.
Tommy announced that the 1976/77 season was to be his last. Phil Neal & Joey Jones were regulars at full-back and the young Phil Thompson was proving to be reliable in another position that Smith could cover with equal competence. Tommy had only played three times in the League when he won a regular spot following Phil Thompson's injury in March in a home match with Newcastle United three days after the first leg of the European cup quarter-final with French champions St. Etienne. Tommy played in the last 13 League fixtures, made his 4th FA cup final appearance for the club and also made the team for the European cup final in Rome. Expected beforehand to be his last game as a Liverpool player, just playing in such a match in such an arena would have satisfied most men - but not Tommy Smith! With the final tensely balanced at 1-1 and with Borussia sensing their chances after Simonsen's equaliser, he moved upfield and met Steve Heighway's left-wing corner firmly with his head to send the ball flashing past Wolfgang Kneib. Neal's late penalty secured Liverpool's greatest triumph and the team returned to an extraordinary welcome and - as fate would have it - Smith's own testimonial fixture at Anfield two days after the final, at which the giant and coveted trophy was proudly paraded.
Tommy decided to play one more season. He was regularly on the team sheet and made another 34 first-team appearances. An accident in his garden in April when he dropped a big hammer on his foot, ended his Liverpool career a month too soon. Smith moved to Swansea City, six months after his former team-mate John Toshack had been appointed as player-manager at the Vetch Field. Before finally retiring as a player, he helped the Swans out of the old Third Division on their meteoric rise from the Fourth to the First.
Tommy Smith can rightly be classed as one of most consistent and influential players ever to have been at Anfield. During his long spell at Anfield Tommy Smith won 4 League championships and played in 4 FA cup finals as well as the finals of all three European club competitions. Only Borussia Dortmund's bizarre extra-time winner at Hampden Park in 1966 and Liverpool's apathetic attitude towards the League cup in its early days probably prevented him from having a medal haul that no other British player could ever match. After retiring as a player, Tommy looked after his business interests on Merseyside and later became a respected member of the Liverpool Echo's sports department. Poor health and a bad car accident affected his journalistic activities, but he coped with those adversities with the same courage and determination that will always be remembered whenever he wore a Liverpool shirt. |
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