A WEST FIFE club and coach have just missed out on picking up prizes at a national, annual awards ceremony.

On Saturday, scottishathletics hosted its 4J Studios Annual Awards in Glasgow, which celebrated, recognised and acknowledged the achievements of individual competitors, clubs, coaches, officials and volunteers over the last 12 months.

Pitreavie AAC, and Fife AC coach Steve Doig, who works with Paralympic champion, Owen Miller, were shortlisted in the 2022 honours, in the 'Impact Club of the Year' and 'Para Performance Coach of the Year' categories respectively.

Pitreavie, who last year were named as 'Track and Field Club of the Year', were put forward, alongside Aberdeen AAC and Springburn Harriers, the latter of whom were named as the winners, for the prize because of their efforts in offering athletics programmes to a wider range of youngsters.

Paul Allan, the club's president, previously explained to Press Sport that their popular run, jump and throw initiative - a programme for 5-12 year olds to engage in the sport - has continued to grow, and has been taken on the road as part of an outreach project.

The club also have a training group based in South Queensferry, as well as a masters training group, and work closely with Disability Sport Fife (DSF) to offer more for athletes with a disability.

Much of the growth of the run, jump and throw has been harnessed by Kate Crawford, Pitreavie's club community athletics coordinator and coach, and a large number of volunteers.

"We're one of the first clubs now in the whole of Scotland that have got our own full-time employee, which is quite massive," Paul said.

"That means, through Kate's role as community coach, it gives us a chance to grow this further because she's now got five days a week to work, as opposed to what happens with things when you only get a few hours here and there. It gives her a chance to work on its growth, as opposed to just the coaching.

"We've got all these people involved in the coaching of it; this helps put the plans in place to take it to the next levels again, and continue to grow. It's huge being able to get the funding to be able to have her as a full-time employee.

"We've got fantastic and a creative bunch of volunteers that are always going to help. We've just got 20 more volunteers undertaking their level one officials courses to help with all the officiating of events, four on the jog leaders courses, so there's a lot of people willing to get in and help, which is great.

"You need lots of people to be in there doing stuff, and that's testament to the fact that we've got lots of really keen and active people helping the club strike these levels.

"It is fantastic.

"It's a sport for everyone and we should be catering for everybody. It's great."

The latest accolade nomination comes after a fine season on the track for the club, which included club member, Nicole Yeargin, winning bronze medals in the 4x400 metres at the Commonwealth Games, the World Athletics Championships, and the European Athletics Championships, over the course of the summer.

"When you get a medal in all three, I'm sure if you told her that was the outcome, she'd be pretty happy with it before she went into it all," Paul added.

"This is probably the first full season we've had, officially, since lockdown, so it's been good.

"The club's had a lot of good success around the various championships, and good growth."

Meanwhile Steve, who coached Owen on his way to T20, 1500m Paralympic gold in Tokyo last year, which saw him named as the 2021 scottishathletics Para Athlete of the Year, was one of three names shortlisted for Para Performance Coach of the Year alongside winner, Rodger Harkins and Joyce Rammell.

As well as coaching Owen and at Fife AC, Steve runs a cross-club training group at the Pitreavie track, which includes another Paralympian, marathon runner, Derek Rae, and Scotland 5,000m competitor, Annabel Simpson.

Elsewhere at the awards, world 1500 metres champion, Jake Wightman, was named athlete of the year, ahead of Laura Muir and Ellish McColgan, the latter of whom collected the Commonwealth Games Achievement Award after winning 10,000m gold in Birmingham.