HIGH RENTS PUT LOAN STARS OUT OF OUR LEAGUE

Digs crisis stops emerging talents coming here

- MARK MCCADDEN

PAUL Heffernan remembers queuing up with the likes of Andy Reid and Keith Foy just to make a phone call to his family back in Dublin.

Then a promising young Notts County prospect, he lived in a converted hostel just around the corner from his compatriots at Nottingham Forest.

And in the days before mobile phones were widely used, catching up with the gossip back in Dublin often involved a long wait outside a nearby phone box.

"The digs we were in was around the corner from the Forest lads," Heffernan recalled. "You had the likes of Keith Foy, Andy Reid and Barry Roche there.

"There used to be a phone box around the corner, so whenever youd go around you would have to get in the queue to ring home.

"You'd be there and the Forest lads would be ahead of you in the queue. Mad stuff. That was around 1998 or 1999."

Heffernan (below) went on to play more than 100 times for County, and his career took him to Bristol City, Doncaster United, Sheffield Wednesday, Kilmarnock, Hibernian, Dundee, Queen of the South and Dumbarton.

There were a few loan moves also thrown into the mix.