Jodie Stone (Lucinda Rhodes Flaherty) 2004-2005

First Regular Appearance: 8.1 (#325) Down  Sunday 17th October 2004

Last Regular Appearance: 8.32 (#356) Play Off  Sunday 29th May 2005

Duration: EP: 325 - 356  |  SE: 8.18.32

Last Seen: Learning Fletch's body was in her father's car boot, and watching him drive head on into the team coach.

 

Jodie was born at the precise time her father, Don Barker, was beginning his managerial career, and he passed his fierce determination and strong mindedness onto his only child. A life in and around football clubs is what she grew up with, and in her late teens, Jodie became close to her father’s star player Frank Stone, the two marrying when Jodie was twenty. Jodie wanted the best for both she and Frank, but as his potential for the Premier League hasn't materialised, she has been left disappointed as her own ambitions have suffered too.

 

Since her mother’s death while she was young, Jodie has grown up to be her father’s right-hand woman, and offers unconditional support in his various deeds. Before Don has even signed the dotted line at Harchester, they are in a plot to bag Tommy Valentine on the cheap, with Jodie leaking the news of his affair with Christine, his team mate’s wife, to the press. Tommy’s agent Sofia and trainee physio Holly also fall foul of Jodie’s willingness to deceive for her dad. Though dedicated to Frank, Jodie is attracted to Tommy, though a known womaniser, and when he leads her on following a messy affair with Michelle Maguire, a furious Jodie sends Michelle’s husband Shay a picture of Tommy getting it on with his wife!

 

When Jodie finds their house at The Barrons trashed, Don tells her he found out Frank had been having an affair and sent him packing to Portsmouth. After confronting Frank, he tells Jodie he is in love with another woman, but when he can’t stay away from her, Jodie takes him back. Don is furious, and forces Curtis into telling Jodie how he caught Frank not with another woman but a man. To save face in front of her father, Jodie refuses to believe what she is hearing, but when alone with Frank reminds him Curtis as a Christian doesn’t lie and Frank's stories do not add up. Jodie goes away to figure things out, but returns a few weeks later when Don is admitted to hospital with an angina scare. Jodie also has news for Frank - she is pregnant but plans to have an abortion. When Frank thinks he was unable to stop Jodie, he is gutted. In fact, Jodie changed her mind at the clinic, and learns at that very moment Frank had a rent-boy back at the house.

 

Still determined to get Frank out of his daughter’s life, Don gives the story of Frank’s bisexuality to Paul Hankin, who eventually gets his confirmation from Curtis. When Jodie confronts Curtis over betraying his team mate, he makes her see her father was the only other person who could have leaked the story. The shock causes Jodie to lose the baby, and bitterly disowns her dad. Jodie appears to be on the road to recovery, but the sight of Danny and Kim’s son Jack on his own is too much for Jodie to bear, and she wanders away with him from the club. The Sullivan’s decide not to press charges, but Jodie feels ever more alone when Frank can’t commit to her anymore with his sexuality now open. Both feeling unwanted, she sleeps with Fletch, her friend Gina's boyfriend, and are caught by Don the next morning.

 

Knowing she has screwed up in Harchester, Jodie decides to leave for Spain, but when Fletch is arrested for poisoning Gina, he tells Jodie her dad paid him to spike Ryan. When Fletch gets out of prison, he and Don have a ferocious fight which results in Fletch’s death, and Don hides his body in the boot of his car as he and Jodie travel to Cardiff for the Play Off. When the body is discovered, Jodie sees Don attempting to escape and calls out to him, as the police close in. Don mouths he is sorry to Jodie, before climbing into the crime-scene car, and looking back at his daughter one last time, drives head on into the Harchester coach causing an explosion which kills the team on board. With the stigma of her father having wiped out the team, Jodie would no longer be welcome in Harchester and leaves for an unknown destination.

 

In May 2020 Lucinda appeared at the Dream Team cast reunion fundraiser Harchester Reunited


Lucinda Rhodes Interview with Dream Team Diehard (July 2012)