Three year deal sealed after awards

Appointed last summer as the Northern Premier League's official pitch partners for the historic 2017-18 50th anniversary campaign, the sports turf specialists are looking forward to working with clubs until at least the end of the 2020-21 season after crowning Trafford, Loughborough Dynamo and Whitby Town at Saturday night's end of season awards and starting work on a new pitch at the Silverlands home of EVO-STIK League Premier Division Buxton on Monday morning.

As well as the honour of being the first recipients of the new accolades since the appointment of the official pitch partners to offer advice on maintaining grass surfaces and surface solutions to meet the growing demand for 3G and hybrid turf pitches, the winning clubs left Blackpool's Hilton Hotel with £500 vouchers to redeem against future maintenance materials or services from GreenFields.

After attending the awards alongside GreenFields commerical director Paul Milton and seeing her colleague on stage to honour Whitby Town's groundsman Eric Wilson, main picture, and the other winners, marketing manager Louise Henderson said: “We couldn’t be happier with the partnership we have developed with both the EVO-STIK Northern Premier League and its member clubs over the past year. Extending this relationship for a further three years was an easy decision and we look forward to supporting and working with even more NPL clubs during this time.”

The winning trio are set to feature in the next edition of the digital newsletter GreenFields started sending out last term after being nominated by their fellow clubs and beating six other finalists into the first and second runners-up spots respectively - Hednesford Town and Stourbridge in the top flight, Colwyn Bay and Tadcaster Albion in EVO-STIK League North and Belper Town and Stamford in EVO-STIK League South - after judges took into account a number of factors including maintenance resources, geographic location, existing irrigation and the amount of pitch usage.

For more information on GreenFields visit: www.greenfieldsturf.co.uk. The company can also be found on social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

* Broadcast live on Facebook, an interactive Twitterwall, Snapchat and Instagram for the second season running, last weekend's historic annual bash on the Fylde coast to celebrate the 2017-18 campaign shattered the EVO-STIK 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 countdown of the NPL’s top 100 players as the 'greatest of all time' since the competition’s foundation in 1968, 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 also unveiled at the weekend. Thanks to title sponsors EVO-STIK and parent company Bostik, Colne, Frickley Athletic and Farsley Celtic collected £1,500 for demonstrating the greatest improvements in web traffic and social media engagement over the course of the historic campaign in their respective divisions.

Launched last August to drive up the social media stats of EVO-STIK League clubs and encourage the most innovative content, the competition also saw Cleethorpes Town collect a £500 prize for achieving the highest number of views and downloads for unique video content featuring EVO-STIK branding.

More than 400 hundred guests including Non-League Paper editor Alex Narey, Southern League chairman Terry Barratt and National League chief executive Michael Tattersall attended the event to hail the milestone 2017-18 season’s champions, play-off winners, cup kings, star players and best-behaved sides.

Welcomed on to a stage featuring fireworks and a giant 20ft high LED screen by compere Kevin Lynch, they were presented with their silverware and accolades by the EVO-STIK League's directors and officers and chairman Mark Harris. Former senior referees Neil Ainsworth and Graham Salibury presented the fair play away accolades while Barry Greenlees from Integro and chief guest Gary Dee, managing director of Bostik UK and parent company of title sponsors EVO-STIK, were on stage to honour the other sponsored accolades alongside GreenFields.

Images courtesy of Rob Lock

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