With the theme music to The Great Escape ringing around Clarence Park St Albans City’s best league attendance for nine years sang and danced with sheer elation, as the Saints secured their place in National League South for another year with a resounding four-goal drubbing of play-off hopefuls Dartford on Saturday.

City needed to win to be certain of evading the drop and, as has been their wont under Ian Allinson, they did it in style, as their tally of goals in eight home league games under the former Boreham Wood manager rose to 24 and handed the Darts their heaviest defeat of the season in the process.

Not that it mattered a jot, St Albans could have won by more but also benefitted from Dartford being without their regular goalkeeper, Deren Ibrahim, through injury.

Ibrahim’s place was taken 21-year-old Australian Dean Gardikiotis and the former Greece Under-21 international had, quite simply, a complete nightmare.

Gardikiotis’ performance was one of the poorest seen at the Park by a ‘keeper for many a long day with the stand-in stopper being at fault for, possibly, three of the goals.

St Albans had a couple of injury concerns going into the game. Charlie MacDonald was not expected to last the whole game due to his troublesome groin strain but the ageless warrior battled through until the 88th minute before taking a seat on the bench.

Michael Thalassitis has been in exceptionally good form of late but a hamstring injury sustained during the warm up to the Herts Charity Cup final left him as no more than spectator from the bench for the crucial game against Dartford.

Tony Burman’s side needed several factors to work in their favour if they were to steal a play-off position, including winning by five goals at the Park.

Attacking the Hatfield Road goal the Darts did indeed make a positive start with Danny Harris and skipper Elliot Bradbrook sending efforts through to the home goal before Lee Burns forced Joe Welch to dive to his left to save a shot from 25-yards.

But already by then City had begun to apply pressure and Gardikiotis showed his frailty when fumbling a simple pick up out for a corner.

Dartford were pinned down as City won three corners in quick succession, from the third of which James Kaloczi headed just over.

Such has been the transformation in City’s fortunes that the season closed with only two sides having scored more times at home than Allinson’s Saints.

The first of Saturday’s quartet came on 17 minutes when the Darts appeared to have cleared a Lee Chappell long throw only for Sam Corcoran to send the ball back down the left to Chappell.

This time Chappell cut back onto his right foot and looped a cross towards the near post.

Kaloczi attempted to get a touch to the ball but it was turned into his own net by the Darts defender Tom Wynter.

A good interception by Ben Martin denied Harris the opportunity to tee-up Andy Pugh for a quick response but Martin himself was out of luck at the opposite end when his header from a Chappell throw was blocked on the goalline by Ronnie Vint.

Louie Theophanous, later presented with both the Supporters’ and Players’ Player of the Year trophies, tested Gardikiotis directly from a free kick and then set off on a thrilling run that ended with his shot being blocked.

City had spent the first half attacking into a strong and exceedingly cold wind that mellowed for the start of the second half.

The second period began badly for the visitors with substitute Becka-Kah Dembele being booked for entering the field of play without permission when he replaced Wynter during the interval without advising the match officials.

Six minutes after the restart and City were well on the way ending any lingering fears of relegation when a familiar Chappell throw completed foxed Gardikiotis.

Chappell’s throw landed in the middle of the penalty area and bounced over Burns, Keaton Wood and the groping hand of the keeper.

Vint did get a head to the ball but could not stop it from heading towards the goal and Dembele’s dreadful start to the game continued to deteriorate as his gallant attempt to overhead kick the ball to safety only resulted in it striking the inside of an upright and crashing into the roof of the net.

City looked to have finally scored a goal all of their own making when Corcoran played the ball forward and Theophanous sent MacDonald clear with a delightful touch. But just as the veteran striker rifled the ball high into the goal the linesman’s flag was raised for offside.

If St Albans were disappointed at having that goal disallowed then they hid it well and stormed back to add a legitimate third goal a minute later.

Welch launched a long ball straight down the Park to Macdonald who did well to hold off Vint and touch a pass to Harry Anderson.

The on-loan Peterborough winger tormented the Darts all afternoon and this time skipped past Dembele before laying a short pass to Theophanous who, with a well-placed drive across the keeper, claimed his 22nd goal of the season.

City’s joint-owner Lawrence Levy celebrated by bursting from the boardroom to the perimeter fencing in record time to lead the rapturous applause, while Theophanous celebrated by removing his shirt and picking up his fourth booking of the season for so doing.

With a quarter of the game still to play Dartford’s chins were much down on the ground and for a while the game meandered, although more St Albans goals could not be ruled out.

Corcoran clipped the top of the crossbar from a free kick while Anderson blasted a shot out of the ground and had another charged down.

Tom Bender almost chalked up his first goal for the club but saw his crisp drive blocked, rather than saved, by the surprised Gardikiotis.

Dartford tried to grab a consolation goal but Scott Thomas, who has ended the season in particularly good form at right-back, stepped in with a timely interception to stop Tom Bradbrook from turning in a low cross from Harris.

Welch also underlined what an outstanding run of good form he has enjoyed in recent weeks when beating out a fierce drive from Elliot Bradbrook.

But this day was all about St Albans’ quite magnificent and barely believable escape from seemingly certain relegation and five minutes from the time the excellent and vocal crowd were given one finally opportunity to celebrate before the final whistle.

A corner on the City right was swung towards the near post by Chappell but headed away by Tom Bradbrook.

Chappell waited for the ball to bounce once before lifting a high half volley to the edge of the six-yard box where Gardikiotis flapped meekly to allow Kaloczi to head home his first goal at the Park since September 2014.

City’s win is their first ever in nine meetings with the Kent club and sees them finish the season in 18th position.

With an eleventh defeat in twelve games Margate slipped to below the Saints but were spared relegation by just a solitary goal and it is Havant & Waterlooville – one of the fancied sides pre-season – who drop out of National League South.

St Albans City: J.Welch, Sc Thomas, T.Bender, J.Kaloczi, E.Oshodi, B.Martin (D.Locke 88), H.Anderson (B.Gibson 84), S.Corcoran, L.Theophanous, C.MacDonald (D.Green 88), L.Chappell, subs not used: M.Thalassitis, A.Bangura.

Booked: Theophanous.

Dartford: D.Gardikiotis, T.Gardiner, T.Wynter (BK Dembele 46), R.Vint, K.Wood, L.Burns, R.Hayes (B.Francis 60), E.Bradbrook, T.Bradbrook, A.Pugh, D.Harris, subs not used: B.Cogan, N.Ferguson, J.Simmons.

Booked: Burns, Dembele.

Goals: 17 1-0 Own Goal (Wynter), 51 2-0 Own Goal (Dembele), 66 3-0 Theophanous, 85 4-0 Kaloczi.

Referee: Carl Fitch (Ipswich).

Att: 1,310.