STEVIE CRAWFORD has said that the opportunity of giving something back to his home town was a big factor in his decision to join Rosyth.

The 49-year-old, a hero at Dunfermline, who he went on to manage after an illustrious playing career that saw him win 25 caps for Scotland, was announced as the East of Scotland League First Division side's new manager last Friday.

He was revealed as the surprise successor to Greig Denham.

Crawford formally met his players on Thursday evening, ahead taking charge for the first time this Saturday, when they visit Oakley United.

After beginning his managerial career with East Fife, Crawford has coaching spells with Falkirk, Heart of Midlothian and MK Dons, before taking the manager's job at East End Park. He later returned to East Fife and was assistant boss at Dundee United for a spell.

Speaking to Press Sport, Crawford revealed that helping out his former team-mate Jason Dair at Inverkeithing Hillfield Swifts during the summer paved the way for the self-described "Camdean boy" to return to the game with Rosyth.

"What I'd done, for the first time in a long time, was I took myself away from football a wee bit," he explained. "I went and enjoyed a couple of city trips, down in Liverpool and York over the summer, without the phone going off, which was very unusual!"

When pre-season came around, Jason Dair asked Crawford to help his brother Lee, his assistant at Hillfield, for one session.

On the back of that, Crawford ended up helping with Hillfield's younger ones, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Then he got a text from Russell Craig, Rosyth chairman, on a Saturday, asking to "touch base" the next day.

"I looked into it and saw Greig had stepped away," said Crawford. "I wondered if he's going to have a wee nibble at me, seeing that I had been around Hillfield at the time.

"We spoke briefly on the Sunday. I went and met them on the Tuesday, him and Dean (Ogg, vice-chairman), listened to what they had to say about the club moving forward.

"They sounded very ambitious without being silly. They've got a good group of boys; Greig's put a decent squad together who've maybe just got off to a slow start with injuries.

"After Tuesday, we met again on Thursday. We bounced another couple of things off one another and then I agreed on the Friday to join them."

"I think with Rosyth, I'm a Camdean boy, and that connection was important to me. If I was going to go back into something like this, I wanted to give the community something back. That ticked a lot of boxes.

"With them moving to Pitreavie, and the training facility that I'm going to have there, to be able to work with coaches and work with players, was very appealing as well."