They turned the nice weather on for the dissertation to see the light of day pic.twitter.com/uLkf02GnEE
— george (@GmbH___) May 21, 2020
A master’s degree student caught the attention of Twitter after displaying his finished dissertation which sought to relate Rory Delap’s long throws in Stoke vs Everton to the 2007-08 financial crisis.
Taking an MSc Applied Statistics course at the University of Aberdeen, George Innes’s final thesis was entitled ‘Blissful Ignorance: the Butterfly Effect’s place in Chaos Theory’.
Eh??
— Rory Delap (@RoryJDelap) May 22, 2020
But it was the short description on the front page that piqued the interest of football fans:
A theoretical study into how the two goals scored by Stoke City straight from Rory Delap’s long throws in their 3-2 loss against Everton on the 14th of September 2008 directly led to Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley ceasing trading as investment banks on the 21st of September 2008.
12,5k words?
Nah, thanks!!— andre götti (@and_got) May 22, 2020
Well I had actually chosen the title before having concrete, or should I say extremely tenuous, links between the two events.
There were a few links I knew I could work from, but there was a bit of blind faith involved. I worked from the two events until I met somewhere in the middle.
Luckily for [the marking tutors] most of the content is numbers and theory that they work with daily. Had the 12,498 words been mainly praise for Delap’s technique or about how Jagielka’s positioning for the own goal was to blame I’m sure they might have kicked up a fuss.
Even then though, I think they thought of it as quite original. Thankfully we had free reigns of the topic and subject and we’ve ended up here.
I’m a big football fan so when I had got my choices down to a few options I knew I wanted to write about it. It was also probably the most absurd.
Another option was linking Staples opening their first British store in April of 1993 to a hotel in Scarborough getting swept into the sea by a landslide a few months later. In my opinion Rory Delap’s long throws bringing the world economy to its knees was more of a pull.
I’m Aberdeen born and bred so naturally I am an Aberdeen fan, although I have nothing against Stoke. I’ve never supported an English club but have soft spots for certain ones that change every few years with the rotation of players.
Well I only have [Delap] to thank. Him, and the people in charge of allowing people with £35 in the bank to take out mortgages on a £230,000 house. But to see him acknowledge it with utter confusion felt like the perfect end to the dissertation saga. Those throws are a thing of legend, once every three months someone brings them up over a pint.
This is for you Rory.