However, in 1896 at eighteen he was recruited to Glasgow and Linthouse, then at the bottom of the Second Division, stayed for two seasons, seeing them rise to almost mid-table safety. That was, still not quite twenty, before Newcastle came in to take him South. In fact he was to find that the first two seasons at St. James' were slow. In 1898-9 he made ten starts. In 1899-00 it was eleven but he did go out on loan to Middlesbrough for three more. But the following season appearances rose to twenty-six and it looked as if he might be set fair. 

Yet in 1901-02 the number dropped to twelve as the forward places were shared out and, with more talent coming through, Tommy was sold on to Aston Villa and probably, by now twenty-four, his two most successful seasons, including a single cap in 1-0 victory over England. However, despite the cap he found himself increasingly out of favour at Villa Park not perhaps personally by nationally. In 1903-4 Villa had three Scots on its books. In 1904-5 it was one, and he hardly played, with Niblo sold to a struggling Nottingham Forest that was in his second season relegated. 

It was  from this point that he became almost itinerant. There were seasons at Watford, one said to be a return to Newcastle but probably recruited to go as player-trainer at feeder club Hebburn outwith the League, then Aberdeen, Raith and Cardiff before it was back to Blyth, Newcastle City and in 1912 retirement. Then war service, in which he was wounded, saw him play a couple of game in London, after which it was north once more to join his family of a wife and five children on Tyneside, there to have three more bairns. In the middle of his first spell at and in The Toon Tommy Niblo had married Maude Armstrong and they were to have eight children in all, settling mainly in the east of the city, latterly in Elswick. Indeed, it would be from there that in 1933 he would be taken to the City Hospital for treatment of his war-wounds and there pass away at just fifty-four, outlived by Maude by seventeen years. She would die still in Newcastle in 1950 at the age of sixty-eight.