The black tie event, which also acted as a fundraiser for the charity Wishes for Kids, was held at Leicester City FC’s Walkers Stadium.

Guest presenter was the head coach of Leicester Tigers Rugby Club, Richard Cockerill, who handed out awards to the club’s outstanding athletes of 2009.

The announcement of the award from UK Athletics was, however, unheralded and brought gasps from the 100-plus audience.

The award will benefit a cluster of area clubs and will in turn contribute significantly to the development of youth athletics. The investment will help pay for coaches to tie in club-school links and various community projects to raise the profile of athletics in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics.

In his address to the club prior to the awards presentation, Cockerill drew on his experience to highlight the differences between individual and team sport.

He said: “When you are competing as an individual then, if you are so minded, it’s easy to drop out and give in. Where you are part of a team, however, there is the added desire to not to let your mates down and to see the job through.”

The awards were preceded by the draw for club places for the 2010 London Marathon, one of the benefits of athletic club membership. Five club members had their names in the hat and this year the names of Alex Prettyman and men’s club captain Stacey Voss were the successful runners.

During the awards themselves there was success for the following: woman athlete of the year Rachael Campbell, male athlete of the year Adam Taylor, most improved athlete Jody Ward, and there was further success for Ward as she made it a double by collecting the clubperson of the year award.

The final award given out in a break from the usual order was for the outstanding individual performance of the year. This was won by outstanding Masters runner Noel Houlihan, who capped his season by establishing a new record for the two-year-old club of 2hrs 57mins 58secs in the Leicester Marathon. This also resulted in his winning the county championship for Masters competitors. The gold medal for this achievement, which was not available on the day of the race, was finally handed over to cap a superb evening of entertainment and celebration of success.