Position : Midfield (also played at centre half)
Played : 1998-99 (on loan from Scarborough)
Appearances : 14
Goals : 1
Now we come to Graham Barrow's last two signings who were effectively the last nails in his coffin. Jason was signed on loan from Scarborough in February. He started out in Manchester United's youth team alongside Ryan Giggs ( an association which probably did him no favours) . After failing to make the grade at Old Trafford he went to Bolton in 1992 on a free and made 30 appearances over 3 seasons filling in at right back, centre half and midfield. In March 1995 Sam Allardyce signed him for Blackpool for £75,000. He had a more regular place there at centre half though the fans weren't keen on him and christened him Jason Idiot. In August 1998 he moved on to Scarborough and was playing regularly up to his surprise switch to Dale.
It was hard to understand. Why did we want another centre-half from the bottom club who had lost 5-1 in each of his last two games for them ? But of course Barrow had the answer- play him in midfield and praise him for winning one or two challenges in the middle while ignoring all the "passes" that went into touch and the hopeless through balls that rolled out for a goalkick. When the equally dire Stoker was signed to play alongside him our misery was complete. In the last 9 games we won just one and we were losing that one until Jason was taken off. In fairness, in the couple of games where he played at the back he did alright.
Thankfully Steve Parkin had no interest in making the move permanent and Jason went over to Ireland to play for Finn Harps. Unfortunately he barely lasted a fortnight there and was discarded after scoring a spectacular own goal. He disappears from the record after that apart from a 10 game spell at Hyde in 2002-03. There is a Jason Lydiate who is a handyman in Salford and I'm guessing that's him.
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