Clubs should dread a visit to Bayview says East Fife boss.

East Fife play their first league game on the new artificial surface this weekend when Alloa Athletic visit.

The side appears to have adapted well to the new ground, having played impressively in stages against Dunfermline and Elgin City in the Betfred Cup.

And they’ll aim to continue that when the Wasps, who drew their opening league fixture with Raith Rovers 1-1, come calling at the weekend.

Boss Young said: “When teams are coming here we want to make sure we’re a team who are always hard to beat.

“We don’t want teams to look forward to coming to play us and will be looking to dictate how the game goes.

“If we win most of our home games and can pick up a few away from home that can be really big for us across the season.

“Alloa are a good team and Jim Goodwin has put together a decent squad.

“But for us it’s all about how we play and looking after ourselves.”

The league campaign didn’t get off to the start Young and his side wanted at the weekend when they went down 1-0 to Stranraer.

There’s no doubt that few teams will take much from Stair Park, with a point plundered probably seen as being a decent return.

The Fifers looked to be well on track to do that until Jamie Hamill sneaked a win for his side with a second half goal.

Stranraer’s narrow win was an indication of how tight the game was, despite both sides having opportunities to score at least a couple of goals.

And how the hosts got their goal was a source of frustration to the manager who felt the side could have done more to prevent Ryan Wallace getting the ball wide to Hamill in the build up.

Young said “poor game management” from an East Fife point of view was to blame for the winner, the boss pointing to an opportunity to concede a foul and disrupt before Hamill raced in on goal to stop the strike.

But overall the manager was pretty content with aspects of the performance, and knows things can only improve for the side once some key players return.

Young added: “The frustrating thing is we played well enough and almost took something from the game without guys like Kevin Smith, Jonathan Page and Kyle Wilkie, who would normally have been starting, in the team.

“Greg Hurst came on as well and showed a bit of quality.

“There were four or five guys we didn’t have that would have helped us create even more opportunities than we did.”

The boss was impressed with on-loan St Johnstone forward Hurst who made an impact when coming off the bench.

“He can play wide left or wide right and I thought he looked good when he came on,” said Young.

“Nathan Flanagan had a few good runs as well.

“The team is still gelling together and there were plenty of positives for us.”

The club’s injury list is slowly beginning to heal with Chris Kane and Mark Lamont the latest to return to the squad for the weekend.