LION KING WILLIE JOHN McBRIDE DUE IN TOWN FOR COLERAINE INST CHARITY
\nMEMORIAL DINNER<\/p>\n
British and Irish Lions rugby legend Willie John Bride will be the
\nprincipal speaker at a unique memorial dinner being held at Coleraine
\nAcademical Institution on Saturday 13 September.<\/p>\n
It is 25 years since \u201cInst\u201d became the first Irish school to play
\nrugby in Japan when a 21-player First XV squad and three coaches
\nembarked on the groundbreaking tour to the Far East.<\/p>\n
Sadly in 2007, Oliver Turkington \u2013 generally regarded as the stand-out
\nplayer on the four-game trip \u2013 died aged 35 after a long battle with
\ncancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cBringing the squad back together to mark the 25th anniversary of the
\ntour was an obvious thing to do,\u201d said current CAI First XV coach
\nRichard Beggs who, as a 16-year-old, travelled to Japan with the 1989
\nsquad as an outside half. \u201cBut the evening will now have much
\ngreater meaning as we have decided it will be an open charity event
\nheld in Oliver\u2019s memory. Everyone who wants to come along will be made
\nvery welcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing consultation with the Turkington family, half of the money
\nraised will be donated to Cancer Research UK with the remainder going
\ntowards rugby development at the school. I hope very much that the
\npublic, both in and around Coleraine and much further beyond, will get
\nbehind us and buy tickets in large numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a real coup for the school, the great Willie John McBride \u2013 who
\nremains the most capped British and Irish Lions Test player in history
\n\u2013 has agreed to give an address.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy son Paul was a boarder at Coleraine Inst and was the tour captain
\nin Japan, so I could hardly say no!\u201d Willie John joked.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore seriously, Oliver Turkington was a close friend of Paul\u2019s and I
\ngot to know him very well personally over many years. He was a fine
\nyoung man and he fought cancer with incredible bravery and remarkable
\ngood humour.<\/p>\n
\u201cOliver\u2019s death was a desperately sad event for everyone, and I think
\nit is a wonderful credit to him that his old teammates are reuniting
\nto celebrate his life, share tales and raise some money for good
\ncauses in so doing. I\u2019m sure it will be a tremendous evening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bruce Turkington, Oliver\u2019s younger brother, said that he and his
\nfamily had no hesitation in throwing their full support behind the
\nevent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Oliver would have been delighted \u2013 and probably a little
\nembarrassed \u2013 to know that his friends were getting together in his
\nname,\u201d said Bruce.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of effort has already gone into the planning and I know many
\ndifferent elements are being worked on to ensure everyone has a
\nmemorable time. I was particularly amused to be told that it won\u2019t be
\na black tie dinner as Oliver had a tendency to be a bit scruffy.
\nQuite right too.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a family, we are all really looking forward to it and to doing
\nwhat we can to make the evening a success.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ticket details for the Oliver Turkington Memorial Dinner will be
\nannounced next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LION KING WILLIE JOHN McBRIDE DUE IN TOWN FOR COLERAINE INST CHARITY MEMORIAL DINNER British and Irish Lions rugby legend Willie John Bride will be the principal speaker at a unique memorial dinner being held at Coleraine Academical Institution on Saturday 13 September. It is 25 years since \u201cInst\u201d became the first Irish school to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5590,17234,5309,363,6159,10005,14247,10952,6348,6483],"class_list":["post-66756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ulster-rugby","tag-charity","tag-coleraine","tag-dinner","tag-inst","tag-john","tag-king","tag-lion","tag-mcbride","tag-memorial","tag-willie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66758,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66756\/revisions\/66758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}