St Albans City manager Ian Allinson insists he would have taken their position heading into the final game of the season when he took charge with the team's survival in the National League South hanging in the balance.

Allinson was appointed as Saints boss in February with the team bottom of the table.

But he has galvanised the team and led them to six wins and two draws from their last nine matches to take them one point above the relegation zone going into Saturday's final match at home to seventh-placed Dartford.

The club are offering free admission for Under-16s this weekend as they attempt to secure a big crowd to help their efforts to stay in the division.

The City manager said: “Dartford is the most important game in this club’s history in terms of this season because we’ve given ourselves a fighting chance.

"I think 12 or 14 games ago if we said we could take it to the last game of the season against Dartford we’d accept that."

Allinson added: “We said with ten games to go we would need to win seven. We’ve won six, drawn two and lost one so we go into next weekend knowing we need one win. If we can do that hopefully it will be enough to keep us in the league."

Hayes & Yeading are effectively down due to their significantly worse goal difference and sitting three points below the Saints. The final relegation place is between Havant & Waterlooville, Margate and the Saints.

Allinson said: “We have to expect Bath will take something from Margate and Weston and Truro will hopefully take something from Havant.

"They’re the things we have to expect and have to believe in but one thing we’ve got to do is prepare properly for Saturday."

The Saints extended their unbeaten run in the league to four games after a 1-1 draw at Wealdstone on Saturday.

Allinson's side made a bright start after taking an early lead but were unable to maintain control as the Stones deservedly equalised.

City opened the scoring after five minutes when Harry Anderson set up Louie Theophanous and he fired a shot past home goalkeeper Jonathan North.

The visitors spurned a series of chances which ultimately proved costly.

Wealdstone improved and levelled the game before the break when Scott Davies' free-kick deflected off James Kaloczi and into the net.

Allinson said: "We don’t know what’s going to happen at Bath next weekend. Hopefully they’ll come out and put a good side out and pick up three points against Margate.

“But first and foremost all we can worry about is what we’ve got to do. Hopefully we’ll go out there on Saturday and be good enough to beat Dartford.

"Hopefully the crowd can turn up like the last few weeks at home and we can put a performance on for 90 minutes and not 30 minutes like today [Saturday]."

The Saints boss added: “I have to give full credit to the players because they stuck in there and could quite easily thrown the towel in.

"But they didn’t do that, we got a point and we don’t know where that’s going to take us until after next Saturday."

The Saints face Bishop's Stortford tonight in their Herts Charity Cup final at Cheshunt.