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Fifty years ago today, an Anfield institution stepped out for the first time as a Liverpool FC footballer.

Six-hundred and thirty eight games later Tommy Smith had won league titles, the Reds’ first FA Cup, their first European trophy and famously scored a pivotal header which helped clinch the first European Cup – but he always said it was that debut appearance against Birmingham City which made him proudest.

“On 8 May, 1963, a matter of weeks after my 18th birthday, I made my Liverpool debut against Birmingham City,” he wrote in his 2008 autobiography.

“It is a night that is indeliby imprinted in my mind. I felt that everything I had worked so hard for had finally come to fruition.

“To this day I can still recite the Liverpool team: Tommy Lawrence, Chris Lawler, Gerry Byrne, me, Ron Yeats, Willie Stevenson, Ian Callaghan, Roger Hunt, Ian St John, Gordon Wallace, Alan A’Court.”

It was a dream debut for Smith, Liverpool blitzing Birmingham 5-1.

He added: “I was gloriously happy and not a little relieved to get through the game without making a telling mistake.

“The Liverpool supporters were great to me. Knowing it was my debut they applauded almost every time I touched the ball, which gave me great encouragement. It was the beginning of a wonderfully warm relationship with the club’s supporters that I am happy to say continues to this day.

“After the game Shanks and Bob Paisley were full of praise for me, saying that I had contributed in a positive way to the game and had played well.

“As a Liverpool lad and a Liverpool supporter it made me feel something I’d never felt in my life before; a mixture of pride, excitement, joy, satisfaction and, no exaggeration, ecstasy consumed my being. I experienced the first natural high of my life.

“After the match I went for a walk around the terraced streets of Anfield.

“I just wanted to stay close to the ground, relive and savour every moment of what had been the most fantastic night of my life.

“I can’t imagine today’s players doing that, even if they wanted to. I was the happiest lad in Liverpool – no, make that the world.

“I kept on walking the silent streets, always keeping the ground within sight, as if I couldn’t bear to part from it.

“I ran the game through my mind, committing to memory my every touch of the ball; playing a through ball to Roger Hunt; contesting a high ball with Ken Leek; tackling Mike Hellawell. I replayed every goal, my part in the build up and celebration, the reaction of the crowd.

“I had always been confident of making it into the first team, yet a small part of me, buried deep within, wondered if I was deluding myself, living a dream that could never be realised.

“Now that small part of me had been extinguished, I told myself that no matter what the future had in store for me I had played for Liverpool.

“The record books would testify to that and no-one could take that away from me.”

The Anfield Iron in the Echo

An Anfield icon for half-a-century, Smithy has been a Liverpool ECHO columnist for 36 of those years.

But he had nothing to do with his first appearance in the then Liverpool ECHO and Evening Express as a fully fledged Liverpool first teamer.

On Thursday, May 9 1963, under the headline “Anfield Season Ends On A High Note” ECHO sports writer Michael Charters wrote: “Liverpool did so well with three reserves – with them, not despite them – for the performance of the youngsters Tommy Smith, Lawler and Wallace showed how well placed the club is for the future.

“Smith, on his League debut, played with an astonishing maturity and will be a powerhouse of a player some day.”

Charters’ words were prophetic and that day wasn’t long in coming.