Tommy Smith 1976

Thomas 'Tommy' Smith MBE was born 5th April, 1945 in Liverpool, England. Tommy joined Liverpool FC under new manager Bill Shankly as a schoolboy on 19th May, 1960 and made his début 3 years later on 8th May, 1963, the last day of the season in a comprehensive 5-1 victory over Birmingham City at Anfield. However, he made no appearances throughout the following season, as Liverpool won the League title. He scored his first goal in the 3-2 league defeat to Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park on 29th August, 1964.

In 1965, he started to feature more regularly and was an integral part of the Liverpool side that won the FA Cup for the first time in the club's history, They beat Leeds United 2-1 after extra-time in the final at Wembley on the 1st May. Although a defender, Smith wore the No.10 shirt; a cunning ploy by manager Bill Shankly to confuse opponents in the days when specific numbers always represented specific positions on the pitch. The No.10 shirt usually was worn by an inside forward.

The 1965-66 campaign saw him become a fixture in the team which went on to regain the League title, earning Tommy the first of his four championship medals, However, the season also had the taste of disappointment as Liverpool lost 2-1 in the 1966 European Cup-Winners Cup final to Borussia Dortmund at Hampden Park. Had Liverpool won, with future successes in other European competitions to come, he would have attained a rare haul of three winners' medals from the three different European contests.

As Tommy's twilight years approached, he made fewer appearances and with the emergence of youngsters Phil Thompson and Phil Neal as central defender and full back respectively, though he still played an important role as Liverpool managed another League and UEFA Cup dual success in 1976, when he appeared 24 times in the league and played a left-back role in both legs of the UEFA final. The following year, which Smith had announced would be his final season with the club, started with him out of the side for several months, but ended with his finest moment.

In 1976, he joined the Rowdies where he slotted into the midfield role vacated by John Boyle. Tommy made 19 appearances and commiting 37 fouls, and only cautioned twice.

Tommy was left out of the side that started the 1976-77 season but, when Thompson picked up an injury in Liverpool's 1-0 win over Newcastle in the March, he was recalled and kept his place as the side went on to retain the League title. He then played in the 1977 FA Cup final which Liverpool lost to bitter rivals Manchester United, thereby ruining the chance of a treble, with the club's first European Cup final in Rome due a few days later. Despite the disappointment of the defeat at Wembley, Liverpool played magnificently to beat old UEFA Cup foes Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-1, with Smith scoring a towering header from a corner to make the score 2-1. It was his 48th and final goal for the club and the first for the season.

He left for Swansea City after 638 games in 1978, receiving the M.B.E for services to football that same year. The Swans were being managed by his former Liverpool team-mate John Toshack at the time and Smith helped Swansea to promotion from the old Third Division. He retired from playing in 1979. It's notable that despite his long association with a winning team, level of respect within the game and amount of medals, he was only ever selected once to play for England, in a 0-0 drawn British Home Championship match against Wales at Wembley in 1971. He also made junior and under-23 appearances for his country early in his career.

For a time, he ran a pub in Billinge, Wigan called "The Smithy". In his later years, he had a hip replacement operation (both knees and an elbow are made of plastic as well) and also began to suffer from arthritis to the extent that he couldn't work and often needed a wheelchair or walking stick and had to claim incapacity benefit. He then had to go to a social security tribunal to explain himself after he managed to take a penalty on the Wembley pitch (which he missed) in a light-hearted contest for charity which featured former footballers which took place at half-time during the FA Cup final in 1996. The informer was an employee for the DSS. Tommy, perhaps only half-seriously, claimed in his newspaper column that the informer must have been an Everton supporter and had only reported him because of his probable anti-Liverpool bias. Staff at the same DSS branch at which the individual worked denied that he was an Everton supporter and claimed that he had no interest whatsoever in football, being a rugby league fan. Nonetheless, the myth of Tommy being shopped by an Evertonian still persists. In any case, his allowance was stopped for a while, but he is now back on the top level of disability benefit. He now supplements his income on the after-dinner circuit and by writing a column for a local newspaper. In March 2008 he published his autobiography, "Anfield Iron".

On 6th June, 2007, Tommy Smith had a heart attack at his home in Liverpool and was rushed to hospital to receive treatment. He underwent a 6 way heart bypass shortly after, from which he has made an excellent recovery and is back as a regular at Anfield for home matches.

Today, he lives quietly in the Crosby area of Liverpool with his wife Susan.