Oxford City manager Mike Ford hailed his side’s gutsy performance after their 2-1 win over Stalybridge Celtic on Saturday.

Coming just a week after their first win of the season in the FA Cup, the result was City’s first league victory and Ford believes his side have now learned how to grind out results.

“It’s three points and it doesn’t matter how you get them,” he said.

“We did a lot of good things to go 2-0 up and sometimes you’ve just got to dig-in and we did that in the second half.

“We scrapped and fought and we got the win.”

But Ford added that City have to make winning a habit if they are to pull themselves away from the drop zone in Skrill North.

He said: “We can only say we’ve turned a corner if in six or seven games’ time we are sitting in mid-table with 15 or 20 points.

“We’ve got a long way to go, but it's a start for us.”