Friendly schedule pleases East Fife manager

The club has set-up friendly games across June and July against clubs ranging from Civil Service Strollers to Premiership club Heart of Midlothian.

The games will present their own, individual challenges as the Fife boss gears his side up for the 2022/23 campaign, which starts competitively with the Premier Sports Cup.

Crawford, who welcomed his players back to training on Tuesday night, said: “I’m wary that, because it’s going to be a short pre-season, that it’s important to get game time into the players’ legs.

"But they’re exactly the type of games that we were looking for early on where boys are able to play 45 minutes each.

"We’ve now organised a game as well against Hill of Beath on 28 before we step up against Cowdenbeath and Hearts before the Dunfermline game.

"The earlier games are all about getting minutes into the guys’ legs without picking up injuries, although you’re never guaranteed that’s going to be the case.

"They’ll push us to that level without it being too competitive where you can pick up strains.

"The Hearts one will be a tough one and I know they’ll send over a strong side so we’ll be asked a number of questions when we’re out of possession of the ball.

"There’s a good balance there for the stuff we’re going to be facing in the Premier Sports Cup.”