This was a comment by a feller named Al below a TAW article on Tommy a couple of years back. Deserves a wider audience:
A wonderful tribute and testimony to a player so immense for LFC that words – even the inspired ones such as those the author has penned – cannot begin to accord him justice. That said, many many thanks for composing such a fine piece Mike.
Tommy’s arrival in ’64 as twin centre back [number 10 shirt] alongside Big Rowdy in a hitherto little known back four line-up came about 5 years after I’d begun watching the Reds from the Boys Pen as Shanks mounted his escape plan from Division Two.
I’ve never been totally sure whether the deployment of Smithy in that role was a true tactical masterstroke by Shanks or whether he was merely mimicking a tactical innovation of other sharp footballing minds elsewhere.
I’d love it to have been Shanks’s own flash of tactical inspiration and it was certainly not deployed by every team back then. However, whatever the case, for LFC it not only ensured the securing of those ensuing historical mid ’60’s league and FA cup triumphs but also provided our formation blueprint for many years to come.
I’ve often said it to friends and family but I’ll repeat it here now as a most appropriate place to reiterate it. The Tommy Smith who bestrode domestic and European arenas back in those mid ’60’s adventure was the finest centre back I’ve ever witnessed bar Franz Beckenbauer.
Yes, better than any others.
For me, despite the inevitable blue-eyed blond incarnation of the undoubtedly majestic Bobby Moore courtesy of the prevailing southern media and, in the eyes of our very own rewritten history, our own two subsequent greats in that position – Hansen and Lawrenson, it was only the performances I saw of Beckenbauer in that centre back role which have ever transcended those of Smithy in the same role.
Mike Nevin references Tommy’s cameos in ’74 and ’77 as testaments to his greatness. And I fully understand why he does so as they certainly do provide worthy substantiation of his abilities at that time.
However, in order to gain insight into the version of Tommy Smith that I put on the pedestal of true world class greatness as a lean mean machine of outstanding strength, power, game reading and, paradoxically, bewitching ball skills and creative ability, I would refer folks to the videos of the ’65 final and the ensuing incredible triumph over the reigning world champions Inter Milan. Both of these have rare cameos of the Tommy Smith we used to witness week in week out back in those halcyon days.
Sure, they show Tommy making those trademark tackles and headed clearances which, allied with a game-reading ability comparable in my opinion with that of Bobby Moore, rendered Tommy a defensive obstacle par excellence. Every Liverpudlian I’m sure knows of those.
However, more revealingly they show tantalising glimpses of the immensely skilled and creative attacking footballer never content merely to destroy who would never waste an opportunity to slalom forward past opponents of whatever pedigree to prise openings for his teammates.
For let there be no mistake, around that period Tommy Smith encountered, tamed and often outclassed the very finest attacking players the British and European game could muster and left many in his surging wake. The dearth of internet writers from the time have ensured Tommy is remembered for his achievements more as the beefy right back in those superb ’74 and ’77 cameos against Newcastle and Gladbach. But let me assure everyone. They do not begin to convey one sliver of the full immensity of Tommy Smith, a player who ranks comfortably alongside Scott, Liddell, Cally, Hunt, St John, Keegan, Dalglish, Souness, Hansen, Rush, Barnes, Suarez and Gerrard in the LFC pantheon of true greats.
And for many reasons can possibly be said to eclipse them all.
One final request to the author. If you do get the opportunity, do please pass on my sentiments to Tommy. I know from reading his own depictions of himself as merely the ‘Anfield Iron’ how unassuming and self effacing he is in regard to what he brought to the Anfield table. But do please let him know that there are still some of us who know the reality of his true greatness which goes infinitely beyond that hackneyed hardman summation of a true great. The mid ‘60’s Tommy Smith as an anchor to our current sparkling attacking set up would guarantee any honour we’d care to name.
https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2017/11/tommy-smith-the-lad-from-liverpool-who-became-shanks-man-and-the-anfield-iron/