'I was 31 before people started to ask me about the throw, I don’t know what I was good at before that, but it must have something!' Rory Delap explains how his throw-in morphed into a psychological assault in the Barclays era

STOKE ON TRENT, ENGLAND - MARCH 20: Rory Delap of Stoke takes a throw in during the Barclays Premiership match between Stoke City and Tottenham Hotspurs at the Britannia Stadium on March 20, 2010 in Stoke on Trent, England. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images).

For a brief, chaotic period in the late 2000s, the most terrifying sight in the Premier League wasn't a Cristiano Ronaldo step-over or Fernando Torres sprint. It was a 32-year-old Irishman drying a ball with his vest.

Rory Delap didn’t just play for Stoke City; he turned the Britannia Stadium into a bear pit. A former schoolboy javelin champion, Delap possessed a long throw so flat, fast, and impossibly rhythmic that it defied modern physics. It wasn't a set-piece; it was a psychological assault.