Thomas Cairney (born 20 January 1991) is a professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Championship club Fulham and the Scotland national team. Cairney has previously played for Hull City and Blackburn Rovers. Born in England, he made his full international debut for Scotland in March 2017. Cairney had previously represented Scotland at under-19 and under-21 levels.
Cairney was born and raised in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, to a Scottish father, who worked as a miner and then as a taxi driver. He also revealed that his father would take him to Scotland and watch Celtic as a youngster. When he was about 15 or 16, he worked for Barclays Bank for work experience. He described this as the "worst two weeks of life!" and had to work 9–5 in a bank and wear suit and tie for two weeks.
Cairney was released from the Leeds United youth system at the age of 16 after being told he was too small. He had been with the club since the age of seven. Reflecting on his time at Leeds United, he said: "To be honest it crushed me, it crushed me a lot, I was with Leeds from I was seven to 16 so it was a big part of my life. I was going there three-four times a week, missing days of schools, and obviously my mum and dad had put a lot into it too. So getting released at 16, it just felt like, ‘oh no, after all that effort’. But I was determined I would not stop there. I went to Hull and they offered me a YTS as they obviously saw something. And from 16–18 I shot up in height and then it went back to my footballing ability. From getting released at 16 to making my Premier League debut – if you wrote it down you wouldn't believe it. I owe a lot to (then Hull manager) Phil Brown as he believed in me. I think the academy staff at Leeds must have got a bit of a shock when they saw me playing in the Premier League! I don’t know what happened to them but I think they may have got a telling off!"