Guiseley boss Mark Bower hailed Tuesday’s historic 1-0 success over Altrincham and immediately set his sights on two more wins in the next week.

The Lions bounced back from their opening-day 1-0 loss at Welling to claim their first victory in the Vanarama National League following last season’s promotion.

Defender Rob Atkinson headed home a first-half winner before Bower’s men held on for a deserved victory, putting them in good stead for Saturday’s visit of Kidderminster before next Tuesday’s trip to Barrow.

Bower said: “I’ll take a 1-0 win all day long. The pressure is off because the longer it goes on without a win it can prey on people’s minds and that can show on the pitch.

“I’m pleased to get it and we can look forward now but we don’t stop there because we’ve got Kidderminster on Saturday and then Barrow on Tuesday.

“It’s a real opportunity to get points on the board early doors and the frustrating thing is that we should have won on Saturday and be sat joint-top of the league.”

Bower admitted Tuesday’s victory should have been more comfortable after a dominant first-half display which could have harvested greater reward.

He added: “In the first half in particular we popped the ball around and played at pace and with real desire and quality.

“We cut them to shreds at times and in the second half they changed their formation, threw caution to the wind and we just struggled to get a foothold on it.

“But we restricted them to very few chances and the disappointing thing was that we didn’t make better use of the counter-attacks.

“We had several opportunities to pick a better pass and finish, just to take the pressure off, but I couldn’t be too critical because it was great to get the win.

“We kept the back-door shut and I thought we defended our goal really well.”

Atkinson, a recent signing from Accrington, headed home Nicky Boshell’s cross after just 16 minutes to claim Guiseley’s first-ever goal in the highest tier of non-league football.

Bower said: “It was nice for Rob and I thought he was terrific for us, defensively, and got the all-important goal for us.

“I thought he grew into the game and showed the sort of player he’s going to be for us.”