Sir Kenny Dalglish has led the tributes to the former Liverpool captain Tommy Smith who has died at the age of 74.

Smith – famously nicknamed “the Anfield Iron” – was one of the club’s most influential and decorated players, making 638 appearances between 1960 and 1978, winning nine major trophies, while he captained Liverpool for three years. The hard-tackling defender won the league title four times, the European Cup once, the FA Cup twice and the Uefa Cup twice.

He was a key man in Bill Shankly’s side that beat Leeds United in 1965 to lift the FA Cup for the first time. Twelve years later, he headed the second goal to help the club win their maiden European Cup under Bob Paisley as they beat Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-1 in the final in Rome.

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Dalglish told the club’s website: “He was a great advert for Liverpool Football Club, the way he conducted himself. His memories will be there forever. [He was] in the first team at the age of 18 and I think he left just after I came. When I came down in 1977 he was an integral part of the dressing room and him and Souey [Graeme Souness] looked after my wife Marina and I, helped us settle in and took us round about the area to see if we could find a house to move into.”

Born in Liverpool in April 1945, Smith grew up in the shadow of Anfield and joined the club he supported as a schoolboy in 1960, initially on the groundstaff, and then briefly as a centre-forward, before adopting the role of defensive enforcer.

Such was his growing reputation that the player was the subject of a transfer enquiry from the Manchester United manager Matt Busby, which was quickly dismissed by Shankly. He made his debut as a substitute on 8 May 1963, in a 5-1 home victory over Birmingham City.

An uncompromising tackler, Smith would strike fear into the hearts of opponents such as Bobby Charlton and Jimmy Greaves while allowing his team-mates such as Ian St John, Roger Hunt, Kevin Keegan and Terry McDermott to thrive. Yet Smith was not just a hard man, he could also play and scored 48 goals in a career which saw him sent off just once.

Smith had struggled with dementia and other ailments in recent times.

His daughter, Janette Simpson, told the club website: “Dad died very peacefully in his sleep shortly after 4.30pm today at his nursing home. He had been growing increasingly frail and suffering from a variety of ailments over the last three months especially. We are obviously all devastated.”

The former Liverpool goalkeeper Ray Clemence, who won the 1973 league and Uefa Cup double under Smith’s captaincy and played with him for a decade, tweeted: “So desperately sorry to hear of the passing of Tommy Smith, a real legend of the club. Honoured to play with him. Great captain and leader of men.”