BIGGEST AND THE BEST YET!
NPL AWARDS HITS NEW HEIGHTS
MORE than half a million people knew all about the EVO-STIK League’s annual awards by the time the last champagne corks were popping at the competition’s 50th birthday party.
Broadcast live on Facebook, an interactive Twitterwall, Snapchat and Instagram for the second season running, last Saturday night’s historic annual bash at Blackpool’s Hilton Hotel to celebrate the 2017-18 campaign shattered the Northern Premier League’s records on social media, the competition’s official Twitter feed alone recording stats of 544,829 unique users and an amazing reach of 1,507,916.
And in the run-up to England striker Jamie Vardy topping a week-long final countdown in descending order of the NPL’s top 100 players as the ‘greatest of all time’ since the competition’s foundation in 1968 following a season long online poll, hashtags #EvostikAwards and #EvostikLeague reached an astonishing 2,304,267 users!
Smashing records on social media couldn’t have been better timed with the inaugural winners of the EVO-STIK League’s Digital Challenge unveiled on a night when Leek Town were crowned Community Club of the Year and the NPL unveiled Bowland Brewery and traditional bakers Wrights as the NPL’s official beer and pie suppliers respectively, the latter another first for the league.
Thanks to title sponsors EVOSTIK and parent company Bostik, Colne, Frickley Athletic and Farsley Celtic collected £1,500 as the clubs demonstrating the greatest improvements in web traffic and social media engagement in their respective divisions while Cleethorpes Town scooped £500 for achieving the highest number of views and downloads for unique video content featuring EVO-STIK branding as the sponsors celebrated the eighth season of their partnership.
More than 400 hundred guests including The Non-League Paper editor Alex Narey, Southern League chairman Terry Barratt and National League chief executive Michael Tattersall hailed the milestone 2017-18 season’s champions, play-off winners, cup kings, best-behaved sides, unsung heroes and star players on the Fylde coast.
Welcomed on to a stage featuring fireworks and a giant 20ft high LED screen by compere Kevin Lynch, top-flight champions Altrincham led the way as they were presented with their silverware and accolades by NPL chairman Mark Harris and representatives of the competition’s sponsors including chief guest Gary Dee, managing director of Bostik UK, Barry Greenlees from cup partners Integro and Paul Milton from official pitch partners GreenFields, who also honoured inaugural Pitch of the Year winners Trafford, Loughborough Dynamo and Whitby Town.