Leith Folk Club scooped the title of ‘Club of the Year’ at the Scottish equivalent of the Grammy’s for traditional music.

The MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards in Perth on Saturday, December 3 attracted some of Scotland’s brightest stars of the traditional music scene including world renowned accordionist Phil Cunningham as well as former presenter of the STV programme The Hour, Michelle McManus who presented an award.

The north Edinburgh club managed to hold off competition from Milngavie Folk Club, Inveraray Box and Fiddle Club as well as Kirkcaldy Acoustic Music Club to raise the trophy for the second time in their relatively short, seven and a half year history.

Marianne Doig, publicity officer for the club, described her reaction as “absolute astonishment” after she collected the award on the night.

She said: “It couldn’t have come at a better time for us because we have one more gig in our present venue then on the tenth of January we are opening up a brand new venue at the Victoria Park House Hotel on Ferry Road.

“This is a new start for us, hopefully we can get the crowds in and we can introduce people to all this wonderful, wonderful talent that is in and around Scotland.

“We have this great wealth of music, can you keep still when you listen to Scottish fiddle music played? We’ve got to get that tradition going, we’ve got to.

“We’ve got some excellent musicians, the talent is fantastic and we’ve got to support that. The way they start out is through folk clubs and I think the folk club has a very important role in bringing the music to the people.

“It just means so much to say that we have won this award, it’s just absolutely fantastic.”

IN DETAIL

• Leith Folk Club