Red-hot hitman James Hall hopes St Neots Town have left the Southern League Premier Division relegation zone behind for good.

Saints leaped out of the bottom four with a fine 4-1 success at Redditch last Saturday and now sit three points clear of danger.

It was a triumph which featured a brace from Hall to take his recent goal tally to seven in four games. He has also burst into double-figures with 11 so far this season.

Hall said: “I had a long spell without hitting the back of the net, but just got my head down and did something about it.

“St Neots signed me to score goals and it’s great that we have myself, Deco (Declan Rogers) and Sam Mulready all putting the ball in the net.

“That’s taken the pressure off me a bit and it has also helped that we have picked up our performances lately.

“It was a massive boost to get out of the bottom four and this is not a club that should be in a relegation scrap.

“When you look around the dressing room, you see that we have a great calibre of player at the club. We have been under-achieving so far this season, but hopefully we can kick on now.

“I believe we can climb the table if we do the right things and trust in each others’ ability – and obviously I’d love to score plenty of goals to help.”

And Hall has also set his sights on FA Trophy glory when Saints head to Merseyside this Saturday.

Northern Premier Division outfit Marine lie in wait at the second round qualifying stage of the national competition.

Hall added: “We will go into the Trophy tie with a lot of confidence after the performance and result at Redditch.

“If we can replicate what we produced in the second half of that game for a full 90 minutes, we will have more than enough to reach the next round.”

Saints will be without stand-in skipper Micky Hyem against Marine, but they won’t be going into the unknown.

Boss Andy Davies and number two Lee Clarke made a near 550-mile round-trip to Cumbria to watch Marine in action at Workington AFC on Tuesday night - a match their Trophy opponents lost 4-0.