The particular feeling of emptiness that can only come from losing a cup final is still colouring Tom Campbell's mood. It is hope that tortures those who have fallen at the final hurdle, rather than despair, and the pain of defeat in basketball's Scottish Cup final on Sunday remains raw for the coach of the Troon Tornadoes.

The 79-60 reverse against City of Edinburgh Kings - a meeting of the top two teams at the culmination of the national league, pre-split season - deprived Campbell's club of a fourth triumph in their sixth national final since their 1991 formation. Their astounding progress over the past two decades will, upon reflection, prove a source of comfort.

But perhaps not yet.

"The big disappointment for me was not so much in losing but in that we didn't play well on the day," insists the 55-year-old. "That's difficult to take but I suppose that we've done remarkably well as we have a much smaller base as we're not a city club."

The geographic constraints of their location on the Ayrshire Riviera have restricted both the continued development of the club and the ambition of their coach. Ingrained communities rarely supplemented by transient incomers are weakened further by the departure of young people looking for something more than chippies, charity shops and cynicism.

As ever with sports that occupy peripheral positions on the sporting spectrum, financial deprivation has also been an inhibiting factor. Indeed, the poverty suffered is such that merely maintaining the club's part-time existence has become a full-time challenge.

"We are an amateur sport with low profile so we struggle financially," concedes Campbell. "We're not even a core sport like badminton, so that support is simply not available to us either. As a result, we have to rely on fundraising just to hire halls to use. In fact, if it were not for a handful of committed individuals, we simply could not keep the club going.

"Different parameters are at work in amateur sport, things that people don't see in the background. We've got guys at the club who have found that life and careers are catching up with them and they find it difficult to commit to training twice a week and matches because of other commitments. Even on Sunday, one of my sons played in the final off the back of two night shifts."

Each of Campbell's four boys have played for the Tornadoes, with two taking part at the weekend. Their involvement is nothing more than a "natural progression" but it is exactly that kind of pathway into the sport that the Drongan native is attempting to nurture.

A business studies teacher by trade, he has been using his position to attract local youngsters into the sport since assuming his post at Marr College in 1991. As one of an unprecedented six coaches for just five teams at Cumnock Academy before his move to Troon, Campbell was dismayed to discover that there was no outlet for basketball in the town and was the driving force behind the hasty birth of the Tornadoes.

"I'm a big believer in links between clubs and schools and when I moved here I saw a potential pathway for the kids," recalls Campbell who, like many of his generation in Ayrshire, discovered the sport courtesy of Bill Bailey, a committed PE teacher.

"There was no basketball really played in this area but we've totally surpassed my expectations. When we started I thought we would struggle to compete, never mind win things."

His triumph has fuelled a desire to maintain the club's standing, and 17 years on he is still striving to bring the game to his pupils.

To burnish the senior successes, Marr's under-14 boys won the Scottish Schools Cup earlier this year, while Largs Academy, their Ayrshire brethren, were defeated finalists at under-15 level. This encouraging emergence of a nucleus of local talent hints at a sustainable future for the club, at the very least, but Campbell insists that more players and funding are always required.

"The work going on through the development group will prove fruitful in years to come," he says, relishing what is perhaps his greatest achievement. "I coach three teams at the school as well as at the club and I can see green shoots coming through.

"I've been involved in international basketball for the last 20 years and now that I'm at the fag end of my coaching career, hopefully, I can pass on some of what I've learned."