His dad Rory played over 350 times in the Premier League and earned cult status for his monstrous long throws.
His brother Liam came through the ranks at Man City and was the shining light for Ipswich in 2024/25, which earned a move to Chelsea in the summer.
And now Finn Delap is carving out a name for himself in the Sky Bet EFL with Burton.
Born in Winchester while his dad was playing for Southampton, the central defender – who grew up idolising Real Madrid’s fearsome duo Sergio Ramos and Pepe – started out at Derby after the family moved when Rory signed for Stoke.
His brother, two years his senior, did, too, but they played in the same team only once.
“It was at a tournament when I was 12 or 13 and he was 14 or 15,” Delap recalls.
“We both played centre-mid and I never wanted to play with him again after that. It didn’t end well! We’ve always said the best thing that could happen is for us to come up against each other.
Liam Delap joined Chelsea from Ipswich in the summer
“It would always be competitive when we’d play head tennis or practice shooting in the garden, but there’d be a spark to it. There was always someone kicking someone!”
Many former footballers’ sons have followed in their dad’s footsteps; particularly in recent years, it seems there is a new face with a familiar surname regularly bursting onto the scene.
The natural question to ask is whether they feel the weight of expectation as a result of that.
“People have put it out there that my dad had a career, my brother is making a career and I can’t let them down,” Delap says.
“At the end of the day, my dad always said, if we didn’t want to play football, we didn’t want to play football. It was the decision of both me and Liam that we both wanted to.
“My dad has helped me out a lot and going to his games made me fall in love with football.
“When I didn’t have the greatest of games when I was younger and he’d give me an earful in the car, I didn’t see it that way, but now looking back, it’s a big factor of why I’ve kept going and the player it has made me.
“Still to this day, he’ll speak to me about games when I get home and ask about training every day.”
Rory Delap finished his playing career with Burton in 2013
Finn was released by Derby in the summer of 2021 and subsequently joined nearby Burton – where his dad finished his career eight years earlier – on a scholarship.
In 2022/23, shortly after his 17th birthday, the club made the decision to give him his first taste of men’s football and he was sent out on loan to Ilkeston Town of the Southern League Premier Central Division, one division below the National League North.
“That’s had the biggest influence on me and I’m so grateful it happened. I jumped straight into it and loved every minute,” he says.
Delap has played six times in all competitions for Burton so far this term
“I learned a lot of lessons playing in non-League that I wouldn’t have if I was playing in the youth teams. It was all about winning. It wasn’t like ‘Oh, you played well, but you lost’. You’ve got to win.
“I was playing with [five-time England U19 international] Kieran Fenton at the back. I looked up to him a lot. He was a good player and he took me under his wing and taught me lessons about football and also about life.
“The group we had there was unbelievable. Jamie Ward was the manager, Leroy Lita was playing up top. Lee Tomlin and Chris O’Grady were there, too. We had a lot of experienced pros that had been there and done it that I could learn from.”
Delap then spent the first half of 2023/24 in the same division with Mickleover, and shortly after returning, Martin Paterson handed him his professional debut when he brought him on as a substitute in a 2-1 win at Bristol Rovers in Sky Bet League One.
“It’s the biggest milestone I’ve hit so far,” he adds. “It’s like a dream come true.”
He played the final seconds away at Leyton Orient the next week, then went back out on loan, this time to Woking in the National League, and started 2024/25 on loan at Buxton in the National League North.
When he returned to Burton just after Christmas last year, Gary Bowyer was the man in charge at the Pirelli Stadium. He included Delap in the next 18 league squads and gave him a run in the first team with five appearances in the last six.
That faith played a key role in the defender signing a new two-year contract in the summer.
“The previous manager [Mark Robinson] still saw me as a young lad who needed experience and when the gaffer now came in, he said he wanted me here and wanted me to fight for a place.
“He saw the experience I had, but also wanted me to build my experience here, rather than being out on loan.
“Knowing he was going to be here this year was massive for me. I had a good run at the end of the season and speaking to him over the summer period, he was very keen on me staying. There was no other decision for me after that chat.
“I have such a good connection with the gaffer, probably the best relationship I’ve had with a manager so far.”
For now, Delap – who says he likes being on the ball, but likes to do “the old-school defending if it needs to be done” – is concentrating on nailing down a regular starting spot under Bowyer.
Things are going well in that respect – and playing the full 90 minutes in the 1-0 win over title favourites Cardiff on September 30 will have done his cause no harm.
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Highlights of the Sky Bet League One match between Cardiff City and Burton Albion.
But he is taking inspiration from his brother’s rise.
“I’m very proud of him. The way he’d come through, going from Derby to Man City, to then have loan spells in the Championship and some not work out, to then be in the position he is today,” he adds.
“It just makes me want to do the same.”
The next Delap forging his own path in the game, and he has high ambitions.
