By Steve Tervet

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER: Rushden & Diamonds celebrate winning the Nationwide Conference in 2000-01
PICTURE: PA Images

Paul Underwood

IT was Friday February 28, 1997 when the phone rang at Brian Talbot’s north London home. His wife answered. On the other end of the line was Max Griggs, the owner of Dr. Martens shoe company and chairman of Rushden & Diamonds Football Club. It was a call which would change the lives of both men – and the landscape of Non-League football.
Five years earlier, Griggs had merged Rushden Town and Irthlingborough Diamonds &ndas...