TOMMY TYNAN

Full Name: Thomas Edward Tynan

Born: 17 November 1955

1. Came from: Newport County   Went to: Rotherham United

1. First game: 27 August 1983   Last game: 11 May 1985

2. Came from: Rotherham United   Went to: Rotherham United

2. First game: 05 April 1986   Last game: 03 May 1986

3. Came from: Rotherham United   Went to: Torquay United

3. First game: 06 September 1986   Last game: 28 April 1990

Appearances: 310 (308/2)   Goals: 144

Born in Liverpool, Tommy's brother Bobby also played for Tranmere Rovers and Blackpool. Tommy himself, began his career under Bill Shankly at Anfield, via a unique route, winning a talent competition in the Liverpool Echo, collecting tokens along with 10,000 other kids. This was whittled down to 22 to attend the Melwood training ground, and play in a match, overseen by Shankly. Tynan's side won 5-3 and he scored all five!

Invited for further trials, on turning 16, he duly signed apprenticeship terms. He played in the 1971-72 FA Youth Cup Final, resulting in a 5-2 defeat to Aston Villa over two legs. At the age of 17 he signed professional terms and scored regularly for Liverpool 'A' but such was the squad strength at Anfield, he couldn't get into the reserves, let alone the first team.

Shankly allowed him to go out on loan, initially to Swansea City in the 1975-76 season, where he made his Football League debut and scored, in a 2-1 defeat at Doncaster Rovers' old Belle Vue stadium. In total he played six games, scoring twice.

Returning to Anfield, his next move was Stateside during the summer of 1976, to the then-burgeoning North American Soccer League (NASL), the precursor to the modern-day Major-League Soccer (MLS). Tynan was loaned to Dallas Tornado, where he came up against Pele's New York Cosmos. He played 17 times and scored twice for The Tornado.

On his return to the UK, he was offered a new two-year contract, but having sampled first team football, he took the tough decision to leave Liverpool without having made a first team appearance, joining Len Ashurst's Sheffield Wednesday for £10,000. He spent just over two years at Hillsborough, playing 91 times and scoring 31 goals and also picked up the Owls' 1977-78 Player of the Season award.

A change of management in South Yorkshire saw the arrival of Jack Charlton with whom Tynan did not see eye-to-eye and he was sold to Lincoln City for £33,000 in October 1978. That move turned out to be a disaster as the manager who bought him left the club within days and his replacement didn't rate Tynan - he played just nine times, scoring once in the 1978-79 season. Despite free scoring for the reserves when not picked, he was allowed to leave and was rescued by his original manager at Wednesday, Len Ashurst, who was now in charge at Newport County.

A fee of £25,000 took Tynan to south Wales, where he formed dynamic striking partnership with fellow Scouser John Aldridge. He was top scorer for two seasons and helped County win the 1979-80 Welsh Cup and to promotion that season. As a result of the Welsh Cup win, County then played in the 1980-81 European Cup Winners’ Cup reaching the quarter-finals, losing narrowly to East German giants of-the-time, Carl Zeiss Jena. Tynan also won County's Player of the Season Award for 1980-81 and in 2009 was the first ever inductee to County's Hall of Fame, having been voted their Greatest Player of All Time.

With County always on the edge, financially, Tynan was eventually sold and a bid of £55,000 (a record for County) by Bobby Moncur brought him to Home Park in August 1983. Tommy would become a true Argyle legend, remembered by fans as one of the club's all-time greats. In his career, he scored 291 goals in 704 senior professional matches, of which, 144 goals and 310 appearances were for the Pilgrims. He scored three hat-tricks including four in a game, once. He was part of the team that reached the 1983-84 FA Cup Semi-Final and won Argyle's Player of the Season award three times, in 1984-85, 1986-87 & 1988-89 - the only player to do so. He also won the Third Division Golden Boot in 1984-85 as the division's leading goal-scorer. Incidentally the Fourth Division Golden Boot that same season was won by John Clayton, at Tranmere Rovers, who later signed for Argyle (ironically as Tynan's replacement when he went from Argyle to Rotherham).

His first spell at Argyle, remarkably, started slowly as in his first 15 appearances he only scored twice, but then he was off and running, scoring 43 goals in 80 appearances before requesting a transfer for back to the north, for domestic reasons, as his wife was home sick.

Tynan moved to Rotherham United in the summer of 1985 for a paltry £25,000 scoring 13 times in 32 games. However, he triumphantly came back to Argyle on loan towards the end of the 1985-86 season, scoring ten goals in nine appearances, which helped secure promotion to Division Two. That included a brace against Rotherham drawing vitriol from their manager Norman Hunter who claimed a 'gentleman's agreement' with Dave Smith that he would not play against his parent club had been ignored. 'Ciderman' denied all knowledge of such an agreement!

To the delight of the club, a permanent return to Home Park early in the next campaign occurred with Argyle repaying The Millers their £25,000. Tynan enjoyed four more successful seasons at Argyle before re-joining manager Dave Smith at Torquay United in 1990 as player-coach, scoring 13 times (including his 300th league goal) in 35 games whilst at Plainmoor.

He ended his career during the 1991-92 season at Doncaster Rovers, playing 11 times and scoring once, against Crewe Alexander in October 1991, at Belle Vue, meaning he rounded off his career scoring his last Football League goal at the same venue he scored his first.

After a short tenure as manager of Goole Town in the Northern Premier League in 1993-94, he had a brief spell in America and then as landlord of a Sheffield pub, He returned to Plymouth, where he had spells as landlord of the Golden Hind and then The Mermaid, a spell as Argyle's Commercial Manager, and in October 1997 was part of a consortium that tried to oust Dan McCauley.

For a while he became proprietor of the Stoke Social Club, before spending many years as a taxi-driver in the city. Tommy also played frequently for Argyle Legends and is a regular match-day guest of Forever Green, the former players' association at Home Park. He was also guest-of-honour ahead of the club's famous 1-0 FA Cup 4th Round win over Liverpool in February 2025.