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Red of the Day - Tommy Smith

by Chris Wood

 

If Ian Callaghan was the only Liverpool player to make the complete journey from the Second Division to the summit of Europe, then Tommy Smith wasn't far behind. Tommysigned professional forms for the club on his 17th birthday in April 1962 and was given his debut for a home fixture with Birmingham City in May the following year.

 

That was the only League game Gordon Milne missed that season and with Milne being an ever-present the next year (1963-64) in Smith's preferred right-half position, the youngster had to be patient and wait for another first-team opportunity.

 

His chance came in 1964-65 when he was picked for the majority of games during the second half of that season. But 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 F.A. 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.

 

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 Smith the leadership qualities that he knew would help and encourage younger players and new signings. Six years after being the youngest member of the 1965 cup-winning team, Tommy proudly led out Shankly's 'new' team for the 1971 final against Arsenal. That day ended in disappointment, as did the following season when a borderline offside decision deprived Liverpool of the League championship in the final fixture.

 

But a year later those memories were banished as Liverpool won two major trophies in a season for the first time. The title was all but mathematically confirmed when Leeds were beaten at Anfield on Easter Monday and the following month Tommy stepped forward to receive the giant UEFA cup after a narrow aggregate victory against opponents who would soon figure in an even greater triumph for the Reds.

 

Smith was surprisingly selected for only one full international (against Wales in 1971) following his 10 appearances for the Under-23 side. But it was Liverpool who paid his wages and he never let the club down in the decade and a half that he was on their books, apart perhaps from the day when Shankly left him out of the team to play at Highbury in November 1973 and his reaction, although unprofessional, showed how much it hurt to be dropped.

 

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 gamesand collected his second F.A. 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. As the 1976-77 season dawned, it looked as if his time at Anfield was drawing to a close. 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.

 

By March 1977 Tommy had only played three times in the League (all as a replacement for Thompson but way back in September) until Thompson was injured 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 F.A. 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 was persuaded to postpone his retirement and made another 32 first-team appearances in 1977-78 before moving 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.

 

Smith can rightly be classed as one of most consistent and influential players ever to have been at Anfield. He made close on 650 appearances in all competitions and scored nearly 50 times. His historic goal in Rome will always be remembered before any other but he was also a reliable penalty-taker for a while until other players were called on to fulfil that role.

 

During his long spell at Anfield Tommy Smith won 4 League championships and played in 4 F.A. 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 until 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.

 

 

 

Date of Birth:05/04/45

Nationality: English 

Postition: Defender  

Games: 638

Goals: 48

ClubHons: Lge Championship 65/66, 72/73, 75/76, 76/77, FA Cup 64/65, 73/74, European Cup 76/77, UEFA CUP 72/73, 75/76

Int Hons: 1England cap

Other Clubs: Swansea City

smith_tommy_profile.jpg
Tommy SMITH 1962-78

 

 


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Would love to have a couple of Tommy Smith's in our team right now. A man who would give everything for the cause yeah he had some faults the Emlyn Hughes saga being one but you could never doubt his commitment to the team.....

Fuck, he can't even walk properly because of it......A true legend.....

 

I'll leave with Barry Davis for my favourite Smithy moment....

 

"And what a delighted scorer ..it's Tommy Smith" ....

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Great defender and I loved watching him. Far better with the ball than his hard-man image would suggest and could play anywhere in the back-line and look like he'd played there all his career. My second Liverpool hero after Sir Roger and still gets in my best Liverpool team (at left back because I' m not leaving him out).

 

I remember getting in a bit late for a Leeds game and the first bit of action I saw was Tommy going straight through Sniffer Clark to win the ball. Perfectly legitimate at the time. Clark was a great player but after being so comprehensively wiped-out he didn't really fancy it and hardly featured in the game.

 

Hunter and McKay had big reputations (deservedly) but the Anfield Iron was the most intimidating of the lot.

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Wasnt he openly racist? Can think of far better "legends" and role models who have represented our club that's for sure.

 

 

Unpalatable as they may be to some of us his personal prejudices don't devalue his invaluable contribution and devotion to the club for me.

The world was a very different place 50 years ago and the society his generation grew up in was 'openly' racist by today's standards.

I don't claim to know him personally so I'm not going to judge his personality but his on-field status is amongst that of the all-time greats. 

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I don't think he was a very nice person away from football, in fact I suppose he wasn't that nice on the pitch either, deffo not to other players anyway. Maybe he just wasn't that bright when you consider some of the dodgy views he quite openly held, though as has been said, the world was a different place then and while it's no excuse, there really is such a thing as generational racism.

I personally witnessed him score THAT goal in Rome in 77 and the memory of that tends to take precedence over any other opinions I might have about him.

There wasn't one minute of that match when I didn't think we'd go on to win but, with hindsight, thinking back to the reality of the situation, we were in serious danger of losing a game that we weren't favourites for anyway after they equalised.

All that changed when Tommy scored and gave me the best moment in my Liverpool supporting career.

 

Another couple of memories I have of him playing in Europe were quite funny, or alternatively, reveal him to be a cheat and a thug, depending on your opinion of him.

I think they both came from the same match which was an away game against Ferencvaros in about 74 or 75 after we'd drew the home game 1-1.

Not long before this match, or possibly the season before, can't remember for sure, there was an incident where a bottle or other missile was thrown from the crowd, hitting a player and causing him to leave the field injured. This player's team went on to lose the game but on appeal, UEFA ordered the game to be replayed.

This was obviously on Tommy's mind when a bottle was thrown from the crowd as he went to take a throw in with the score 0-0 and Liverpool about to be knocked out on the away goal rule. This bottle must have missed him by about 10 yards but Tommy saw it and and took a dive, claiming it had hit him. Can't remember if we actually appealed or not but UEFA took a dim view and fined and/or banned him as it was quite obvious what he was trying to do.

Also, as we were pressing hard late in the game looking for the goal that would take us through, a ball was played forward towards Keegan as their goalie ran out towards it. The two came together and the goalie stayed down either genuinely hurt or, more likely faking it a bit.

This would have been a nothing incident back home but on the continent keepers were more of a protected species and they took a dim view of such challenges on the goalie. So some of their players started to crowd round Keegan bullying him with some pushing and shoving. Next thing Tommy comes charging in to the picture and suddenly there are 3 Ferencvaros players lying on the ground holding their faces.

Not sure how long his ban was for the other incident but he'd have been banned for about 2 years if he'd done that these days.

I went to his testimonial too after arriving home at about 5pm on the Friday evening on the first special that left Rome Wednesday night.

I sat down on the steps of The Kop and fell asleep.

It was that gripping.

:)

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Good post William.  I share some of those memories, having gone to that final as a 16 year old. I also have had the privilege of being shouted at by Smith as I had the temerity to stand on one of his chairs at Castle Court (I think it was called), a cellar bar in an alleyway behind Castle Street.  I was only 17 or so, and it was a sobering experience.

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Reading his book at the minute. 

 

I've heard a few people on here bad mouth him in the past. 

 

Shame because he is a legend of the club. 

 

You obviously havent got to the part that will show why people bad mouth him.

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I don't think he was a very nice person away from football, in fact I suppose he wasn't that nice on the pitch either, deffo not to other players anyway. Maybe he just wasn't that bright when you consider some of the dodgy views he quite openly held, though as has been said, the world was a different place then and while it's no excuse, there really is such a thing as generational racism.

I personally witnessed him score THAT goal in Rome in 77 and the memory of that tends to take precedence over any other opinions I might have about him.

There wasn't one minute of that match when I didn't think we'd go on to win but, with hindsight, thinking back to the reality of the situation, we were in serious danger of losing a game that we weren't favourites for anyway after they equalised.

All that changed when Tommy scored and gave me the best moment in my Liverpool supporting career.

 

Another couple of memories I have of him playing in Europe were quite funny, or alternatively, reveal him to be a cheat and a thug, depending on your opinion of him.

I think they both came from the same match which was an away game against Ferencvaros in about 74 or 75 after we'd drew the home game 1-1.

Not long before this match, or possibly the season before, can't remember for sure, there was an incident where a bottle or other missile was thrown from the crowd, hitting a player and causing him to leave the field injured. This player's team went on to lose the game but on appeal, UEFA ordered the game to be replayed.

This was obviously on Tommy's mind when a bottle was thrown from the crowd as he went to take a throw in with the score 0-0 and Liverpool about to be knocked out on the away goal rule. This bottle must have missed him by about 10 yards but Tommy saw it and and took a dive, claiming it had hit him. Can't remember if we actually appealed or not but UEFA took a dim view and fined and/or banned him as it was quite obvious what he was trying to do.

Also, as we were pressing hard late in the game looking for the goal that would take us through, a ball was played forward towards Keegan as their goalie ran out towards it. The two came together and the goalie stayed down either genuinely hurt or, more likely faking it a bit.

This would have been a nothing incident back home but on the continent keepers were more of a protected species and they took a dim view of such challenges on the goalie. So some of their players started to crowd round Keegan bullying him with some pushing and shoving. Next thing Tommy comes charging in to the picture and suddenly there are 3 Ferencvaros players lying on the ground holding their faces.

Not sure how long his ban was for the other incident but he'd have been banned for about 2 years if he'd done that these days.

I went to his testimonial too after arriving home at about 5pm on the Friday evening on the first special that left Rome Wednesday night.

I sat down on the steps of The Kop and fell asleep.

It was that gripping.

:)

 

 

Haha I remember that when I was a kid I remember listening to it on the radio then a few days later probably on Footy Focus or World of Sport and seeing these grainy black and white images of the Anfield Iron going down in installments.....happy days

Its a shame really as he was my mums favourite player till she found out his political leanings and other aspects of his personality but his dedication to the team should never be forgotten, and I guess we all not perfect....

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Why bring up his personal opinions and political views?

 

He was and is a legendary player for us, and all that should matter is the fact he was one of the greats on the field.

 

Totally solid no matter where he played, and totally fought for the cause whenever he played.

 

I couldnt give a shite what he thought or what his personal views were, as long as he did what he did when he crossed the white line in a red shirt should all be what matters.

 

And from seeing him play in the flesh so to speak, I for one am glad he was playing for us.

 

True Red, and true legend, end of.

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