The Ryan McBride Foundation is officially launched in an event at the Everglades Hotel today.

The foundation was set up by Ryan’s family in conjunction with Derry City, and the committee are in the process of raising funds.

There will be a jam-packed bill at the weekend, with an auction, Phil Coulter and Damian McGinty providing the music, and John Giles appearing for a special question and answer session.

Ryan’s sister Caitlin has spearheaded the planning, and she said there is an exciting event ahead.

“May McFettridge volunteered to come down to do the auction. We’re very lucky that everyone has volunteered, we didn’t really have to do anything. Phil Coulter said he would be happy to do it then Damian McGinty contacted him about it as well so they came to us,” she explained.

“Then we were speaking to Pat Duffy at the FAI and he said John Giles will come down and do a Q&A, and obviously he’s a legend for anybody that lived through football in the 60s and 70s. He’s won FA Cups and Premier Leagues and European Cups so he’s a big name as well.”

Items currently listed for auction include a signed Carl Frampton boxing glove, a number five Lee Keegan signed Mayo shirt and two tickets to Manchester United. All funds raised from the night will go to the foundation’s work.

“Everything is going into the foundation, and really probably for the next four months all the foundation will do is fundraise. We’ll have small things that others are organising that we can get involved with and push them along, but in terms of our own projects nothing will really start until around Christmas,” Caitlin said.

“At the minute it’s just about getting the money in and seeing what we have, then budgeting out what we can fund. We have ideas and things we want to do but we won’t be actually doing anything for the next four to six months.”

There will also be a special video played on the night in memory of the Derry City captain.

“This idea kicked off very early and the response from people donating things for auctions and coming over has been fantastic.

“There’s not going to be any speeches on the night but there will be a video at the beginning which is a tribute to Ryan and will go on for about fifteen minutes. Everything will be included in that; it will be really special,” Caitlin said.

“Tony McBride is working on it. That will be early in the night so we’d urge people to get there on time or they will miss one of the main parts. The family have put the first half together and there will also be a lot about Ryan away from football and his life outside of that, then the second will be more about it.”

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