CRAIG Brown today urged his young guns to prove their worth in the reserves next season and show the rest of the division they hold the key to North End's future.

Brown believes that the club's successful youth scheme will yield the players of the future for North End, especially since the collapse of ITV Digital led to belt-tightening throughout the Nationwide League.

But with a squad of more than 30 clamouring for first team places, Brown also knows that breaking through could prove a tough task for some of the younger players at present.

Left-winger John Bailey,17, attacker Joe O'Neil, 18, and midfielder Alan McCormack, 19, are among the bright young things around the edge of the first team squad at the moment.

And Brown hopes they can go on to emulate the success of other former youth players, such as Michael Keane and the now-veteran Lee Cartwright.

In recent years North End have resorted to buying in up-and-coming players, such as Pawel Abbott, who joined for £125,000 in 2001.

Abbott played a key part in the club's reserve Avon Premiership success in 2002, and Brown wants to see the home-grown talent at Deepdale do the same this season.

Brown said: "We have a lot of very good young players here and I think that is very important for the club, particularly now given how money is not being splashed around by clubs so much.

"Players like Alan McCormack are on the edges, but it is up to them to make full use of the reserve games next season to show how important they could be to us.

"It can be a big step up, but I'm confident we have a lot of good players coming through and that can only be good news for Preston."

There has been very little transfer activity at Deepdale during the close-season, bar Grimsby's failed attempt to sign Keane.

But the spotlight fell on Iain Anderson this week after Tranmere Rovers moved in to take him back on loan again if they can afford his wage bill.

North End subsidised several loan players' wages last season, something the club is not keen to repeat this year.

To that end, it made the shock announcement last week that long-serving assistant manager Kelham O'Hanlon had been made redundant a move which will have stunned fans.

Since Brown's arrival, along with coach Billy Davies, North End have had a management staff of three. Last week, the latest round of job cuts led to O'Hanlon being shown the door.

O'Hanlon was still on the playing staff as well and many thought he would one day become manager.