Smith's career spanned the amateur and professional game. He started out at the amateur clubs Dundee High School FP and then played for Watsonians prior to the professionalism of the old Scottish District teams. Of these pre-professional times, Smith was to say: "You find out about survival the hard way. When I joined my first senior club in Dundee, there was an old prop called Danny Herrington, a bit of a local legend, who basically shoved my head up my arse in training, twice a week every week for what seemed like years. Now, that's what you call a learning curve. Those training sessions were my classroom."