Pictured above is Bob Brolly with Ray Vaughan. Bob is wearing a special George Best signature shirt featuring a combination of Manchester United and Northern Ireland shirts. The shirt is the first one to have been produced and was presented to Bob by the manufacturer

THIS YEAR’S Brolly and Friends Concert at Symphony Hall is to feature a surprise guest in the shape of Daniel O’Donnell’s wife.
Majella O’Donnell is one of a host of Irish stars who will join entertainer and broadcaster Bob Brolly, for what has become one of the most eagerly anticipated events in the Midlands’ music calendar.
Brolly and Friends is now in its ninth year, each year raising a sum in the region of £50,000 for a chosen charity.
This year the funds being raised are in aid of Diabetes UK. The reason is in large part down to Ray Vaughan, a good friend of Bob’s who runs Vaughan’s Private Members’ Club in Hall Green with his wife Pat.
Speaking to The Harp, Bob said: “Ray Vaughan said ‘you never do anything about diabetes,’ he is a diabetic himself and said he would like to do something. He has been so good to me over the years, so this year it is for diabetes.”
Initially this year’s fund raising drive was going to be launched earlier in the year but Bob’s heart attack put things back.
It was actually launched a few weeks back at Vaughan’s, with Bob’s Sunday show on BBC Radio WM being broadcast live from the club.
Ray promised £5,000 and the launch saw £5,000 raised.
The lion’s share of the fund raising though will result from the Sunday June 18 concert at Symphony Hall, with a line-up that features some of the hottest rising stars of Irish country music and some home grown talent too.
Tommy Fleming and Michael English are two entertainers building a considerable reputation for themselves in Ireland but it is the inclusion of Majella O’Donnell - who has only just launched her professional singing career - that is the real coup for organisers.
Bob said: “I didn’t know she was a singer, although she had sung with me in Tenerife and she has got a good voice. She used to drive us around in Tenerife and would get up and sing a song or two and suddenly this new album arrived – ‘Majella At Last’
“Mrs O’Donnell – the girl who broke a million people’s hearts. I have never seen so many devastated women as on that night he announced he was going to get married – every one of them thought they were going to be Mrs O’Donnell. But she is a lovely, lovely girl and a cracking person.”
Joining Bob, Majella, Tommy Fleming and Michael English are Michael O’Hare, Jerry and Kathleen Lynch, Fergal Flaherty, Irene & Tom, The Father Teds, Birmingham Pipes and Drums and Celtic Feet.
There are still a number of tickets remaining and they are available from the Symphony Hall box office on 0121 780 333 or people can book online at www.necgroup.co.uk.
The Brolly and Friends fund raising drive will also be boosted by the annual trip to Tenerife, which this year will see 157 people travel from England and Ireland to descend on the Hole in the Wall pub in Las Americas.
And September 29 sees the annual charity golf day at Hearsall Golf Club, which is followed by an evening of entertainments and the cheque presentation.