‘The Lions built this club’: watching the first Test at Ballymena RFC, home of Lions legends

The Northern Irish club that produced Willie John McBride and Syd Millar is steeped in the history of the Lions even if it has no players in the 2025 squadAn hour before kick-off, and I’m beginning to wonder if watching the first Test at Ballymena RFC was such a bright idea. It’s only me and the girl working the bar, and she doesn’t have a strong opinion on whether or not Tom Curry should be playing No 7. “Which paper did you say you were with, the Ballymena Guardian?” No, it’s the other Guardian, I say. “Oh, the Antrim one.”Just about the time I was beginning to think that all of Ballymena’s thousand-or-so members must have been among the tens of thousands going the other way into Portrush for the Open, they began to trickle in, one, two, three, four dozen, and more. Continue reading...

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