Hometown Hero is a series celebrating some of the area's best known and widely-loved names.

On his very first day of university, Gary Lightbody had a lot more on his mind than freshers and studying.

He was busy forming a band that would later become one of Scotland's most successful alternative rock groups.

Originally from Northern Ireland, Lightbody met classmate Mark McClelland at university in 1994, and they quickly began composing music under the name Shrug.

The name changed from Shrug to Polar Bear rather quickly after the duo realised their preferred name was already taken, but ultimately kept with the winter theme and decided on Snow Patrol.

They enlisted in the help of Jonny Quinn to play drums in 1997, and signed with Jeepster Records one year later.

They sold their first two full-length albums with the label, but moved onto Fiction Records after guitarist Nathan Connolly joined in 2002.

Since then, the band released a breakthrough hit "Run" whick sold more than four million copies worldiwde. They later went onto release their best known singles, "Just Say Yes" and "Chasing Cars", which brought them international fame.

After a six year absence, the band announced in March that they were working on their comeback album. Lightbody said: "We had a breakthrough recording session in Feb and are on the home straight.

"The awesome jacknife lee is in the producer's chair as usual and we have more time with him in the studio in May/June and will be finished at the end of June.

"Hopefully that gives us plenty of time to bring the album out this year. that is the plan. Plans are fallible but we'll damn well try our best."