Paul Cattermole, a former member of the chart-topping pop band S Club 7, is auctioning off his Brit award on eBay, citing “bills to pay”. After being put on the auction site for an initial £650, the item has at the time of writing attracted bids of £66,000, with three days still to go.

S Club 7, who scored 10 top three hits in the UK including four No 1s, won the best British newcomer award at the 2000 ceremony. Cattermole describes the award as having “signs of age”, and offers a meet and greet with whoever wins the auction, including photos, “distance depending”. “It’s time to let the past be the past,” he adds.

S Club 7 in happier times. Photograph: PA

He might be hoping to follow in the footsteps of another pop star from the same era: Abz Love from the boyband 5ive put his Brit award up for sale in 2015. He initially put the award on eBay with a view to buying supplies for his farm in south Wales, having been using it as a doorstop – bids reached over £1m before the auction was deleted by eBay. “All I needed was a bit of topsoil and it’s gone nuts,” he said at the time.

S Club 7’s fortunes dipped after their run of chart success. Cattermole left in 2002 to join an unsuccessful rock band, with the rest of S Club disbanding in 2003. Cattermole partially reformed the band in 2008 with Jo O’Meara and Bradley McIntosh, later joined by Tina Barrett, though he left again in 2014. In December 2017, the remaining trio released a new single, Family.

According to former member Hannah Spearritt, each of them earned only £600,000 over the four years of their most successful period, despite generating millions of sales.