Tommy Smith (Liverpool footballer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tommy Smith | ||
| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Thomas Smith | |
| Date of birth | April 5, 1945 (age 61) | |
| Place of birth | Liverpool, England | |
| Playing position | Defender | |
| Senior clubs1 | ||
| Years | Club | App (Gls)* |
| 1962-1978 1978-1979 |
Liverpool Swansea City |
467 (36) 36 (2) |
| National team | ||
1971 |
England Under-23 England |
10 (?) 1 (0) |
|
1 Senior club appearances and goals |
||
Thomas 'Tommy' Smith MBE (born 5 April 1945) was a long-serving footballer with Liverpool, known for his uncompromising defensive style.
Contents |
[edit] Life and playing career
Born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, Smith joined Bill Shankly's Reds as a schoolboy on the 19 May 1960 and made his debut 3 years later on the 8 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 the 29 August 1964.
In 1965, Smith 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 1 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 Smith become a fixture in the team which went on to regain the League title, earning Smith the first of his four championship medals, However, the season also had the taste of disppointment as Liverpool lost 2-1 in the 1966 European Cup-Winners Cup final to Borussia Dortmund at Hampden Park. If they had won, with future successes in other European competitions to come, Smith would have attained a rare haul of three winners' medals from the three different European contests.
After the success of '66 there then followed a barren period for Liverpool in the late 1960s, after a disastrous cup defeat at Vicarage Road to Watford Shankly decided to dismantle the team and build a new, younger one, Smith and team-mates Ian Callaghan, Chris Lawler and Emlyn Hughes survived the cull which saw the likes of Alec Lindsay, Brian Hall and Ray Clemence emerge from the reservres and Steve Heighway, John Toshack and, later, Kevin Keegan join the club. Smith was given the honour of club captaincy and led the team to the 1971 FA Cup final, which Liverpool, unfortunately, lost to Arsenal.
In 1973 Smith skippered the team to their first double success of the League and UEFA Cup when they topped the league by 3 points over Arsenal and beat Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-2 on aggregate. He then had the disappointment of losing the captaincy to Hughes after he had complained to Shankly upon being left him out of the team for a game. When he returned, he was also moved from his favoured central defensive role to full back. Smith ultimately settled his differences with his manager satisfactorily, though less so with Hughes who went on to lift the FA Cup in 1974 after Liverpool comprehensively beat Newcastle United in one of the most one sided of Wembley finals. Although Smith did miss out on receiving the trophy from Princess Anne he did have the joy of setting up the third and final goal for the young striker Keegan, a stunning team goal.
As Smith'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, 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.
Smith was left out of the side that started the 1976/77 season but was recalled after Thompson picked up an injury in Liverpool 1-0 win over Newcastle in the March, he came in and kept the spotas 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 European foes Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-1, with Smith scoring a towering header to make the score 2-1. It was his 48th and final goal for the club and the first for the season.
Two days after the remarkable night in Rome, Smith had his testimonial game at Anfield, a Bobby Charlton select Xl and 35,694 adoring fans turned out to honour the Liverpool hardman as the side played out an entertaining 9-9 draw, such was the party atmosphere of the evening the Liverpool goalscorers included 2 from goalkeeper Clemence and 2 from the now 'prolific' Smith! He decided to delay his retirement and played a further season for Liverpool (missing the successful retention of the European Cup after a DIY accident at home injured his foot).
Smith left for Swansea City after 638 games in 1978, he also recieived the M.B.E for services to football the same year. The Swans were being managed by his former Liverpool team-mate John Toshack at the time, he 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.
Apart from a brief spell as youth coach at Liverpool, Smith has not stayed in the game to any great extent, preferring business and journalistic careers after his playing days ended, but his legend lives on whenever people refer to the vernacular of the "hard men of football" and Smith has made a reasonable living from talking about his career as the Anfield Iron - a nickname afforded to him by Liverpool supporters.
Many, including Smith, claim that he was unlike most of the other footballers who are lumped into the "hard men" category, in that he was always absolutely fair. Smith himself always points to his disciplinary record whenever people question his intentions when tackling opponents - he was often cautioned, but more for things he said than did, and was never sent from the field of play. Others, however, would contend that Smith was no different from the rest of the so-called 'hard men' of football and was by no means 'always fair'. On one occasion in the mid 60s, during a derby match against Mersey rivals Everton, Smith committed an outrageous tackle on forward Roy Vernon virtually from the kick-off which resulted in Vernon being carried from the field of play and being sidelined for several weeks. Prior to the match, Liverpool manager Shankly had identified Vernon as Everton's in-form player and said that he would be the greatest threat to his side. Smith was widely accused in the press of deliberately putting Vernon out of the game, though Smith is said to have denied this.
Smith was known for his sharp tongue during games, often seen berating and even trying to instruct the referee in command. That said, he certainly had the respect of his peers, with fellow "hard man" Jack Charlton once saying "Tommy Smith was easily the hardest player I faced. I ran into him once and he knocked every ounce of breath out of me. I tried to get up and look like he hadn't hurt me, but he had." Charlton's defensive partner at Leeds United, Norman Hunter, and Chelsea's Ron Harris, both considered as tough players, also pay similar respects to Smith.
In his later years, Smith 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 (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. Smith, 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 Smith being shopped by an Evertonian still persists. In any case, Smith's allowance was stopped. He now earns a wage from the after-dinner circuit and a column for a local newspaper.
Smith has also been a critic of modern players' dietary habits, bemoaning the extra-healthy options preferred prior to a game compared to the three-course meal he always consumed, which invariably included soup, steak and a pudding.
He lives quietly in the Crosby area of Liverpool with his wife Susan. He is also still held in high regards amongst the Koppites as he was voted 25th in the Official Liverpool Football Club web site poll 100 Players Who Shook The Kop.
[edit] Career details
[edit] Liverpool F.C
(1962 - 1978) - 638 appearances, 48 goals
- 4 First Division (level 1) championship winners medals (1966, 1973, 1976 and 1977)
- 2 FA Cup winners medals (1965 and 1974)
- European Cup winners medal (1977)
- 2 UEFA Cup winners medals (1973 and 1976)
- European Super Cup winners medal (1977)
- 3 Charity Shield winners medals (1965 (shared), 1966 and 1977)
- 2 First Division runners-up medals (1969 and 1978)
- FA Cup runners-up medal (1971)
- League Cup runners--up medal (1978)
- Charity Shield runners-up medal 1971
- FA Youth Cup runners-up medal 1963
[edit] England
1 cap (1971)
[edit] Personal
- Awarded the M.B.E for his services to football in 1978
