Preston North End boss Craig Brown has revealed his admiration for Bermuda's Stephen Astwood but says he will not be looking to add the player to the English Division One club's ranks - for the time being at least.

The former Scottish national team manager ran the rule over the PHC frontman during a behind-closed-doors match against Third Division Darlington last Friday.

However, Astwood, who had an offer from Preston in 2000 only for his work permit to be rejected, was unable to convince Brown to take him on, in part due to suffering a bad head injury midway through the 40-minute match which was played in pouring rain.

The player was involved in the best move of the run-out, however, when he, Eric Skora, John Bailey and Joe O'Neill combined with the latter sidefooting just wide.

Speaking to The Royal Gazette from Preston yesterday, Brown said Friday's match was scheduled at short notice as the Lilywhites did not have a competitive match over the weekend due to internationals.

And he revealed that North End were not the only club interested in the player.

"We heard from his agent that he was over at another club, which has to remain nameless for obvious reasons," said Brown. "I think it was a Premiership English club having a look at him and the agent asked if we would have a look at him as well.

"He played in the practice game against Darlington and he did okay, but not any better than the strikers we already have here at the moment and the one we have out on loan at Bury, Pawel Abott.

"He did impress but my judgement as a manager (has to be) `Is he better than what we have?' My value judgement (was) that he didn't seem better than O'Neill and Bailey, the two guys we have in the reserves at the moment, and also the very promising young Kelvin Langmead, who is in our youth team.

"What we like about the player is that he is a goalscorer, although he didn't score in the practice game. He has good control (and) good game awareness.

"Unfortunately he got a head knock in the game, quite a severe knock resulting in a visit to the doctor where he got a couple of stitches inserted in the wound."

Brown, who took over at Preston last year from the now Everton manager David Moyes, did not rule out anything happening in the future.

"We will continue to monitor his progress," he said. "But we haven't tried to affiliate him to our club by offering him a contract.

"There is no point in offering a player something at this juncture, other than to keep him from signing for another club."