Everton have had several iconic monikers over the years.
David Moyes famously labelled Everton as ‘The People’s Club’ in early 2000s. Back in the 1960s an 1970s it was ‘The School of Science’, which came with the Holy Trinity of Alan Ball, Howard Kendall and Colin Harvey.
And in the mid-1990s, when Everton last won a major trophy, it was Joy Royle who coined the term ‘The Dogs of War’. And Everton definitely lived up to the billing. What they lacked in quality, they made up for in grit. And The Dogs of War went from languishing under Mike Walker in November, to finishing clear of the relegation battle and also winning the FA Cup by May.
A 6th-place finish followed in the 1995-96 Premier League season, when Andrei Kanchelskis starred following his move from Manchester United, providing the flair to go with the solid foundations.But was the Dogs of War tag fair? Barry Horne, who was a pivotal figure in those mid-1990s teams, had no issue with it.
“Well, Joe, master of the one-liner, fantastically witty man, brilliant football man, brilliant Evertonian obviously. And it was just one of Joe’s throwaway lines, wasn’t it?,” Horne said, speaking exclusively to ToffeeWeb as part of our Once a Blue Series.
“You know, I think he was asked, I can’t remember which game it was. I want to say the semi-final, but I’m not convinced it was. |But Joe was asked, when such and such comes to Goodison, what will you do? And I think Joe said, ‘I’ll set the Dogs of War on them!’ And of course it was a great one line.
“The newspapers, which was the media back in the day, latched onto that and it stuck. And people have asked me since, did I mind it? Because it’s almost derogatory. And I was like, no, it was fantastic. Because during that period under Joe Royle, you did sense that teams didn’t want to play against you. Not only because we were a good team, but they knew they were going to get a rough ride.”
For Horne, ignoring outside noise is something that stuck with him throughout his playing career.
“I’ve always only ever worried about the opinion of a small group of people; teammates and my manager,” he said. “The manager obviously because you wanted nothing more than to be playing in the next game and your teammates of course because they’re your teammates and that’s all I ever asked for. I didn’t really care what the reporter or anybody outside of that group thought of me as a player as long as that group of people appreciated what I did.
“Yeah, it was great and still obviously now, you know, people remember the Dogs of War, people talk about them even if they probably never saw Everton play live on that day, they’ve heard of it. They’ve heard that era and that team. And one of Joe Royle’s many one-liners.”
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