Kevin Kyle joined Dale in January 2001 following Dale manager Steve Parkin having only two fully fit first team strikers to choose from at the club. Despite his best efforts to bring in someone on a permanent basis, Parkin opted to bring in Kyle on a temporary basis to help the club out during a busy time of the year.
Kyle joined Dale with a reputation of scoring goals for Sunderland reserves. He bagged 31 goals for the Black Cats second string during the 99-00 season, which saw him called up to play for Scotland U-21's in the away fixtures against Latvia and Croatia.
Kyle found it very difficult to break his way into the first team squad at Sunderland, which given that Kevin Phillips and Niall Quinn were ahead of him is perhaps fair enough. He had two previous loan spells before joining Dale. He had a month at Huddersfield making four substitute appearances, but could do little to halt their slump down the league. He joined troubled Darlington for a two month loan spell at the beginning of November and made a total of eight appearances for them, scoring one goal.
His time at Dale was far from being successful. He played a total of six games for the club, three of which were off the bench. His arrival coincided with a slump in our own form, and the his own goal in Dale colours was an own goal in the infamous 7-1 home defeat by Shrewsbury.
He had perhaps one good game for the club in a goalless draw away at Cardiff, but after that it was pretty much forgettable and there were no protests whatsoever when he was sent back to Sunderland at the end of his loan spell. It was therefore a little surprising to find out that he became an international regular for Scotland.
Later his career, he had a £600,000 move to Coventry but its clear that he's not exactly set the place on fire just yet in terms of scoring goals.
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