Craig Maskell, the unsung hero of Brighton’s 1996-97 Great Escape

Robbie Reinelt scored at Hereford United. Stuart Storer scored at home to Doncaster Rovers. Neither of those goals would have counted for much through without the 16 goals that Craig Maskell plundered for Brighton & Hove Albion in the 1996-97 season.

And yet whenever the heroes of that year are listed – Reinelt, Storer, Steve Gritt, even Mark Ormerod for his last minute save from Adrian Foster at Edgar Street – Maskell hardly receives a mention.

Scoring 16 in any season should be a cause for celebrating a striker. Let alone one who achieves the feat in a team who finished second bottom of the entire Football League, and who only stayed up by virtue of scoring three more goals than relegated Hereford.

So, what’s the deal with Maskell and the lack of love? Perhaps it’s the fact that he endured a slow start to his Brighton career after being a relatively big money capture for the time at £40,000.

Perhaps it’s the fact that he didn’t have many glamorous attributes, just the uncanny knack of always being in the right place at the time. Poachers rarely get the credit they deserve, as Ruud van Nistelrooy can attest to.

Maskell didn’t need pace to score goals, which was just as well as he didn’t have any. He wasn’t particularly strong. That sometimes lent itself to the opinion that he was lazy; the reality was that he was just a very clever player who could read the game well enough to make it look effortless. That takes effort in itself.

Or perhaps it was just that very few of us have sat down and appreciated how important Maskell’s goals were. Without them, we might not have a Brighton & Hove Albion to support.

Maskell made his professional debut for Southampton in April 1986 but it was once he moved to Huddersfield Town for the 1988-89 season that he began to make a name for himself.

In his first campaign at Leeds Road, Maskell was second to only Steve Bull in England’s scoring charts as he hit 28 goals for the Terriers.

In his second season at Huddersfield, he notched another 21 to convince a certain Mark McGhee to make him Reading’s record signing for a fee of £250,000.

Maskell hit 26 in two years at Elm Park before moving to Swindon Town. He top scored for Glenn Hoddle’s Robins in the 1992-93 season as they won promotion to the top flight for the first time ever, his haul of 23 including goals in each of the playoff semi final legs against Tranmere Rovers and one in the Wembley final where Leicester City were vanquished 4-3.

Despite his scoring feats, Maskell was never really given a fair crack at the Premier League with Swindon. He made just 14 appearances, departing the County Ground before immediate relegation back to Division One was confirmed with a £250,000 move back to first club Southampton in February 1994.

Maskell scored on his second Saints debut against Liverpool but struggled for game time in two years at the Dell, making just 17 appearances in two years.

Which is where his Brighton story begins. Jimmy Case’s overriding transfer policy of the time seemed to involve signing players from Southampton.

Maskell, Paul McDonald and Derek Allan all made the move along the south coast in the space of a few weeks in Spring 1996.

Maskell arrived in March. He made his debut in a 0-0 home draw with Brentford, opening his Seagulls account three games later with the consolation in a 2-1 Goldstone defeat against Oxford United.

A brace followed in Maskell’s next outing as Hull City were hammered 4-0 in Hove, but he scored just once more in the final 10 games of the 1995-96 campaign.

That came in the rearranged home game with York City, a 3-1 defeat that took place long after Brighton’s relegation from Division Two had already been confirmed.

Those Brighton fans who had been expecting Maskell to get the goals to keep the Albion up were left disappointed. Things didn’t get much better for the striker in the opening months of the 1996-97 season. He managed just four in the opening 17 games as Brighton slumped to a seemingly hopeless position at the foot of the table.

The apathy towards Maskell would have been understandable at that point in time. He seemed to be impacted by the circus going on off the pitch more than most and a return of seven goals from 30 games for a striker who cost what was a lot of money at the time wasn’t really good enough.

But something changed for Craig Maskell once Steve Gritt assumed the Brighton hot seat in December 1996. He scored in Gritt’s first game in charge, another big win at home against Hull City as the Tigers were tamed 3-0.

Maskell played in Gritt’s second game away at Leyton Orient but then missed a month through injured. Once he returned, he was new man – and no defence in the division could stop him scoring.

A brace in a 3-0 win at home to Rochdale. A hat-trick on Fans United Day against Hartlepool United, after which he kissed the ball he’d earned before booting it into the North Stand – nothing was more symbolic on a day full of emotion than the sight of Craig Maskell giving a football back to fans of clubs from across England and Europe who had gathered in Brighton to ask for exactly that.

There was the 79th winner in a 3-2 win over Swansea City. Two goals in the crazy 4-4 draw against Leyton Orient. His final goal of the 1996-97 season beat soon-to-be-crowned Division Three champions Wigan Athletic 1-0 at the Goldstone, probably the most impressive result of the season.

And then there was Hereford itself. Reinelt is quite rightly the hero, but it was so nearly Maskell. Had his dipping left foot volley curled an inch to the right, then it would have crashed into the back of Andy de Bont’s net rather than the foot of the post.

Luckily for Brighton, Reinelt was on hand to do what all good strikers do and bury the rebound once it cannoned off the upright to save Brighton from relegation and quite possibly extinction.

Maskell couldn’t repeat his scoring feats in the 1997-98 season and he managed just three goals in 20 appearances as the Albion again floundered, kept off the bottom only by the fact that Doncaster somehow contrived to be even worse.

For a player whose form had dipped the previous year when the club’s off the field problems and adversity was at its height, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that he struggled when faced with an uncertain future playing ‘home’ games a 150 mile round trip away in glamorous Gillingham.

Budget constrains brought about the end of Maskell’s Brighton career in in November 1997 as the Albion desperately tried to offload senior players to tighten the purse strings while in exile.

He moved to Hong Kong to play for the wonderfully named Happy Valley before returning to England in March 1998 with Brighton’s rivals of the time, Leyton Orient.

After a little over a year at Brisbane Road, Maskell called time on his career, deciding to retire on the Wembley pitch after Orient were beaten in the 1998-99 Division Three play off final against Scunthorpe United.

Maskell reportedly turned to one of his teammates, said “That’s enough” and never kicked a ball as a professional again.

“I’d spent too much time away from my family and too little time on the pitch at Orient,” Maskell later said over his decision to quit. He’d only just turned 31, but had fallen out of love with football.

He never received much love during his two-and-a-half years with the Albion. And while he never scored the vital, history-shaping goals that Reinelt and Storer will forever be hailed for, he is surely worthy of a place just below those two in the honours list.

Because Craig Maskell was the unsung the hero of Brighton & Hove Albion’s 1996-97 Great Escape.