Hampshire's Will Champion's ever 'blossoming' success with Coldplay

The ceremony at London's 02 Arena, was opened by the band with a colourful performance of their single Hymn For The Weekend, where they and the audience were showered by a deluge of confetti petals.

It struck me as somewhat ironic that organisers spends thousands creating these lavish sets and special effects to make the band look pretty while Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and co always seem to be wearing the same old t-shirts and jeans.

A few people took to Twitter to bemoan the fact that Beyonce was not performing with them but that seemed a little unfair: if they are big enough to play at the Super Bowl then they are big enough for the Brits,with or without Beyonce.

And, after all, they went on to win Best British Group - making them the most successful band in the ceremony's history!

In fact, the band now have nine Brits trophies to their name. This is the fourth time they have been named Best British Group . Incredibly they have had 23 Brit nominations since their first one 15 years ago.

Given that drummer Will, 35, is Southampton born and bred I do take a particular interest in the band. For the record,Will was born in Southampton in 1978 and was brought up in the Highfield suburb of the city, close to the University of Southampton where his father, Timothy Champion, is a professor of archaeology.

He attended Portswood Primary School, secondary school at Cantell Maths and Computing College, and college at Peter Symonds College.He also attended Highfield Church and played cricket for Chandler's Ford CC along with his older brother.

He learned to play piano and violin when he was eight and he learned to play the guitar when he was 12. And before the dizzy heights of his success with Coldplay he performed in a band called Fat Hamster.

Will has not responded to the many requests from the Daily Echo in recent times to do an interview - in fact he seems to avoid any media, leaving all the talking to frontman Chris.

Even when Ant and Dec wandered through the celebrity audience at the Brits to sit at the Coldplay table they too had little success. When they pointed out to Will that Coldplay had won their first Brit in 2001 and they must be pleased Will was economical with his reply: "Yes, it's absolutely amazing. Who could not be pleased."

And so it was left to humanitarian Chris once more to give a profound response on behalf of the band.

He referenced the members of boy band One Direction as he pointed to his fellow Coldplay members, saying: "What a treat from Harry, Zayn, Liam and me, Niall."

Then he added: "We'd like to dedicate this to all the young men and women musicians in refugee camps around the world. They could be us and we could be them, so we send them our love and thank you so much for giving us our job."

It is a job that keep them incredibly busy as they head off to tour South America in March, followed by Wembley and then the USA. Long may they continue to produce great music and achieve great success - even if there is no time to speak to the local press, or go clothes shopping!

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