Tommy Smith

"I was born with football in my blood. Red of course, not Blue. There are no half measures in Liverpool, either in the pubs or in a football sense. My grandfather and father supported Liverpool. There was no debate. No argument. I would also follow the Mersey Reds. Indeed it went a little bit deeper than that with me. I was a fanatic, brought up on a diet of football, football and more football." 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. Bill Shankly summed up Tommy best: "Tommy Smith wasn't born, he was quarried." Smith was born only a spitting distance from Anfield and as a 15-year-old in May 1960 his mum brought him to Shankly and told him to take good care of her son. Smithy became one of the toughest customers to ever wear the Liverpool shirt. But there was more to his game than tackling as he had 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 five games of the 1964/65 season as a forward, scoring two goals. His teammate, Chris Lawler, was amused by his playing style: "I told him: 'Smithy, the opposition would kick-off and you would be straight in to tackle the centre-half. Shouldn’t it have been the other way round?'"

Smith was moved to centre of defence on 5 December 1964 in a 5-1 League win against Burnley and never looked back. Despite often wearing the No. 10 jersey, Smith never was the inside-forward that his shirt number suggested, something which was to confuse foreign opponents who expected him to venture further up the field than he did. By the end of the season, 20-year-old Smith had become a regular member of the side and featured in the emotional day at Wembley when Liverpool won the FA Cup for the first time. 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.

Smith shared in the remarkable success of the mid-'60s 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. Smith revelled in the role and in his first full season as captain Shankly declared: "If Smith isn't named Footballer of the Year, football should be stopped and the men who picked any other player should be sent to the Kremlin." Members of the Football Writers' Association voted Frank McLintock. Smith held on to the armband until November 1973 following a row with Shankly just prior to kick-off at Highbury as he had been dropped from the starting 11 facing Arsenal. Smith left the stadium and took the next train home to Liverpool. He came close to leaving the club but soldiered on and quickly won his place back. Replaced by Emlyn Hughes as captain, Smith moved back to right-back as Chris Lawler's Anfield career neared its end. 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 Smith'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. Smith utilised his fear factor to the fullest. "I did warn players. When Tottenham striker Jimmy Greaves came out at Anfield one time I handed him a piece of paper. He said: 'What's this?' I said: 'Just open it.' It was the menu from the Liverpool Infirmary. I make no bones about it, that's what I was good at. Some players were good dribblers, others good headers, I was a hard tackler and I used it to gain that 'edge' that Shanks was always looking for."

Smith announced that the 1976/77 season was to be his last. Phil Neal and 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. Smith had only played three times in the League when he won a regular spot following Phil Thompson's injury in March. Smith played in the last 13 League fixtures, made his fourth 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 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. Smith decided to play one more season 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 teammate 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.

Bob Paisley enjoyed having Tommy Smith in his ranks. "His fearless nature not only unsettled the opposition, it inspired his teammates. They drew strength from his example. It was a little bit like having a big brother around to sort out any trouble you got into. Seeing Tommy racing on to the field after having a couple of stitches inserted into a head wound could put courage into the most cowardly of hearts – as long as you were on his side!"

Tommy Smith can rightly be classed as one of the most consistent and influential players ever to have been at Anfield. During his long spell at Anfield, he won four league championships and played in four FA Cup finals as well as in 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, Smith 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.