'Beno Herdy': Miss World is the answer to Delap's throw

Ben Herd / Ben Herd / 05 November 2008 / Leave a comment Free £25 Bet

Betting.Betfair's toughest tackler takes a break from bombing down the right to offer compelling advice on how to do what the Arsenal back four couldn't, salute a team-mate who could give Rory a run for his money and list the ecelectic cast of Shrewsbury Town nicknames.

Let's start this week's article with Rory Delap's humungous long throw. Every football pundit on the planet is offering words of wisdom to teams going to The Britannia on how to try and combat this deadly missile.

Delap's throw takes me back to my early memories of the Premiership with the likes of Wimbledon only too eager to launch balls into the box. Funnily enough, we played Stoke in a pre-season friendly; we lost 1-0 but we weren't undone by the long throw.

As a defender, I do watch Match of the Day and wonder how I would combat it. Without offering any radical formula or over-complicated tactics, I would take our own manager's instructions: when defending set-pieces, do not let your man win the battle. For those few seconds, nothing in the world matters, apart from defending the incoming ball - even if you're dating Miss World, which by the way, none of the lads are!

We have our very own Delap at Shrewsbury, David Hunt. I've known Hunty since I was about nine-years-old, when our families went on holiday together, and let me tell you, he had a massive throw on him back then - just ask the Spanish kids we battered!

You may have noticed that in most of my articles I refer to players like David Hunt as Hunty. Basically, in the football world 90 percent of people's names have either a 'Y' added to the end of it or an 'O'. I suppose my nickname, and what most people call me the majority of the time, is Herdy or, very occasionally, Beno (not very original!).

However, this season a few of the lads have taken it upon themselves to liken me to balding celebrities, such as Evan Davis off Dragons' Den. Believe me, that's quite tame compared to some of the other lads' comments - some of them might need counselling by the time they leave Shrewsbury!

Without dropping lads' in it, I'll just give you a snippet of some of the banter flying around: Bruce Forsyth, Shrek, Ashley off Coronation St, Fod (rather large forehead), Chewbacca, Chuck Norris, Shetland pony and T-bag off Prison Break.

This is an insight into what I've got to put up with every day, but it's all in good jest, and considering this may be read by a younger audience, they're the only printable ones I could mention!

This weekend sees the first round of the FA Cup commence. We've been drawn away to Blyth Spartans...sounds like a film! I suppose this is the 'magic' of the cup, where every team in the land gets their opportunity to participate. This means we will be travelling up north on the Friday. It's a long old way, so I'll try and get some zzzs in on the coach.

Speaking of sleep, I was reading a Michael Essien (The Bison!) interview where he claims he has something like 13 hours of kip a day - no wonder he's full of beans when he plays. For me, my usual routine is bed by 10pm and I'm up at 7.45am. Like my old man says, you don't know there are two sevens in a day!

On weeknight games, I do have a couple of hours nap in the afternoon. I find it's a long day without it. I have tried having 40 winks in the afternoon after training, but to be honest, I find it difficult to sleep then.

Seb Coe says sleep played a pivotal part in his Olympic success. He trained himself to sleep literally up to a few minutes to the race - I might have to try that one.

Another unoriginal nickname is 'The Yak'. For those of you who don't know, I'm referring to Yakubu of Everton. The big man is in action this weekend as David Moyes' team try to win on successive weekends. They take on the Irons at Upton Park. I really believe that The Yak is probably the most important player for Everton. I know they have some other good players but, up front, the big man is the only one I can see being a regular scorer.

Everton are lacking firepower and, if anyone's going to score, it's got to be the big Nigerian. So as the song goes, "Feed the Yak and he will score." With this ringing endorsement, back Yakubu To Score at anytime at around [4.5] and I fancy this game to be Under 2.5 goals at {1.89]. Get on those two for all they're worth!