Liverpool have confirmed the sad passing of former club legend Tommy Smith, who has died at the age of 74.
Affectionally nicknamed the ‘Anfield Iron’ by supporters, Smith played for the Reds for 16 years between 1962 and 1978, making 638 appearances for his hometown club.
Smith captain the Reds for three years, and won nine major honours with the club during his time at Anfield, even scoring in Liverpool’s victorious European Cup Final in 1977.
The one-time England international was also an intremental player in Bill Shankly’s FA Cup winning team in 1965, the first team to win that competition for Liverpool.
In all, Smith lifted four league titles, a European Cup, two FA Cups and two UEFA Cups during his time with Liverpool.
Talking to the Liverpool official website about her father, Tommy’s daughter Janette Simpson said on Friday:
Dad died very peacefully in his sleep shortly after 4.30pm today at Green Heyes nursing home in Park Road, Waterloo, Crosby.
I was on my way to see him when he passed a couple of minutes before I arrived.
Dad was only in here since the end of January and prior to that had been living in a care and sheltered accommodation complex for three years in Maghull.
He had been growing increasingly frail and suffering from a variety of ailments over the last three months especially.
We are obviously all devastated.
Our mum, Sue, died four years ago. Mum’s death did hit dad especially hard and the illness took a bit of a grip of him after that we feel.
The thoughts of everyone at Read Liverpool are with Tommy’s family and friends.
