'The Lions built this club': Test-watching at Ballymena

The home of Syd Millar and Willie John McBride is steeped in touring history, including at the bar

- Andy Bull

An 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. Soon enough everyone's comparing the vintages of their Lions jerseys. There's one from '01, another from '05, a few from 2013, and a couple of little kids, more interested in playing their own game than following the one on the TV, have the 2025 edition.

They are too young to understand anything much about the match except that it matters to the adults. The Lions is an idea that gets passed on from one generation to the next, follow it back long enough and you'll end up at two men who were born and bred in this very club, Willie John McBride and Syd Millar, who did as much as anyone to make the team into what they are today.