Hey everyone, it is Trainer Thatch here to celebrate PUCL’s 9 year anniversary. For those of you who might not know who I am. I am the host the P.U.C.L. Podcast, the longest running pokemon podcast. PKMNcrossroads, asked if I would write up a history of PUCL in celebration as well as suggest a few episodes this year that I think you should listen to if you are new to the show. So let’s dive right into the history books.

How it All Began

I had gotten into podcasts in high school, and I had this odd passion to be a radio DJ. So when my friend known to the community as “Professor Sycamore” agreed to do a show where we talk about Pokemon, a passion we both shared. At the time Diamond and Pearl had just been released and we were getting into the competitive scene, since this was the first generation of online play. Needless to say, we recorded a podcast and titled it after the club we had created at school, “The Pokemon Underground Champion’s League” or simply “P.U.C.L.” We recorded an episode and found out how to build an RSS feed, and our episode officially dropped on December 31st, 2007. From there we continued podcasting for about a year and a half until we inevitably went to college. We had lined up a replacement for Sycamore, “Ace Trainer Ace” however, that did not work out. This would begin the next era of P.U.C.L. history.

The P.U.C.L. Crew Era

Around this time (2009) we had assembled a number of committed community members that helped with the functions of our community and with a lack of a cohost, I called them up to see if they would help with the production of the podcast. So for about a year, Speezi, Infinity, Green Tauros Guy, and Toast helped me record the podcast. I appreciate the love they had for the community, but I have to admit it was probably the roughest time for PUCL. I clearly remember editing out swears one episode for Speezi who had cursed about 30 times one podcast. It was during this era of transition that I met both Sarge and App, the two members of the show that would move PUCL into its next era.

The Sarge and App Era

Sarge was my roommate throughout college and App was and still is one of my good friends. Freshmen year of college they were into pokemon and they found out about the podcast and periodically would help out with the show. Then once 2010 came around they became full time hosts on the show, and it was fantastic. Just like recording with Sycamore again, we could produce a show and have some fun while doing it. Around 2011 however, the show took about a 4 month hiatus, and Sarge created an elaborate story of how we were captured by a Mexican drug cartel when we returned. Things were good until graduation found us once again when we would no longer live together. This was a point I thought about ending the podcast. Fortunately Bocefus recorded the bumper tracks we still use for the show and from there we became fast friends and formed the “Blackthorn Council” a nonsensical name we came up with in 2013 to describe the community members that put a lot into the community. It started the current era we are in now

The Council Era

We have gone through a few changes since 2013. First would be that we finally started a weekly schedule. Second would be that near the end of last year we started a spin off show in the PUCL TCGcast. The success of that show has led to a number of other spin offs like PUCL Movie Club, PUCL Koffee Hour (Formerly PUCL LIVE), PUCL Gamecorner, and P.U.C.L. Battle Cast. It has been fun doing all of these shows. I really enjoy doing it, and even as the 10th year of work on the show and community begin, I look forward to another 9 years of doing the show. Thank you to everyone that has been on the show, written articles for our website, and most importantly the people that listen to the show and participate in the community.

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