“I’ll write my version of the story, shading it with the beauty of songs I love. And they’ll turn this vague lonely feeling back to the warmth and honesty and safety of good people. It’ll be good fun.”
National Pop League 72
November 30, 2007
Glasgow’s National Pop League consisted of 80 sweaty nights, 80 playlists, 80 fanzines, 80 badges, and countless memories. As both a digital archive and an oral history project, The National Pop League Archive aims to collect and share all of these in a single place. In digitising the ephemera produced across the club night’s seven year run, we hope to evoke a time, a place, a community, a feeling, a phenomenon. By recording oral history interviews with those who created and attended NPL we want to get even closer to what truly made it special. It’s tricky to preserve and share a collection of fleeting Friday nights, and we can’t do it without documenting, in their own voices, the experiences of the people who came to NPL.
We see The National Pop League Archive as one phase in an ongoing project; those who have encountered the story–whether they attended, simply knew of it, or are hearing of it for the first time–believe it merits a book. We believe we’re the people to write it. The deeper we dive into the force of nature that was NPL, the more possibilities open up to pay it tribute.
Follow us to keep up with our discoveries and progress. If the National Pop League made an impact on you, we want your story. If you’d like to record an oral history interview or share your photos and mementoes contact us at theNPLarchive@gmail.com or through our social media channels.
ABOUT US
Aged 21, Sam Dymond travelled from London to Glasgow to attend the first National Pop League. Aged 28, he travelled from London to Glasgow to attend the final National Pop League. In between, he made countless friends, fell in and out of love, heard new songs and danced to old favourites, all upon the sticky floor of the Woodside Social Club.
Now he hopes to utilise a recent MA in Digital Media and Information and a passion for archiving to help reignite the stories of NPL and preserve its legacy for future generations.
A native of the American Midwest, Amanda Howard never got to attend National Pop League, but shared and lived its ethos of Peanuts comics, scout badges, and minute 2:32 of ‘Age of Consent.’ The Transatlantic friendships she forged with NPL regulars have endured for nearly two decades.
In the intervening years, her passions have taken her from Kansas to New York, Arizona, Hollywood and beyond, earning credentials as a media scholar, MLIS and certified archivist along the way.
The National Pop League Archive 
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