Soccer stars kick off charity’s £1m life-saving campaign

An array of famous faces launched Cure Leukaemia’s £1million appeal to expand the Centre for Clinical Haematology at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital. West Brom football star Ben Foster, cricketer Jonathan Trott, football manager Aidy Boothroyd, X-Factor winner Sam Bailey, and former footballer and blood cancer survivor Geoff Thomas joined 100 key figures from the West Midlands at the event at the city centre offices of charity partner KPMG. Prof Charlie Craddock, co-founder of Cure Leukaemia, said: “Once established, the centre’s capacity will be doubled.”

Photography by Sam Bagnall

Captions:

1 James McLaughlin, Aidy Boothroyd, Ben Foster, Jonathan Trott

2 Stephen Jones, Sarah Bridgwater, Paul Morton, Zara Rikalans, Scott Marshall

3 Pearl Wrey, Mervyn Ind, James Maltin

4 Sam Graham, Greg Talbot

5 Geoff Thomas

6 Hayden Groves, Ben Foster, Alex McLeish, Doug McKinnon

7 Andy Street

8 Marcus Leach

9 Richard Whittingham