{"id":5900,"date":"2010-10-28T11:55:15","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T10:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/?p=5900"},"modified":"2010-10-28T12:00:20","modified_gmt":"2010-10-28T11:00:20","slug":"the-willie-john-mcbride-seal-of-approval-billy-andys-restaurant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/the-willie-john-mcbride-seal-of-approval-billy-andys-restaurant\/","title":{"rendered":"The Willie John McBride Seal Of Approval: Billy Andy&#8217;s Restaurant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First things first &#8211; Superb food!<\/p>\n<p>We arrived at Billy Andy&#8217;s to meet Penny &#038; Willie John McBride who had kindly agreed to carry out a review of the restaurant.<\/p>\n<p>Richard Hunter the owner greeted us and immediately the rugby memories began to flow. <\/p>\n<p>In fact, Richard played against Willie John in the senior cup final 1979-80 season. It was the last game Willie John played and it just goes to show the depth of rugby in Ulster. There must be no town or village in Ulster that a rugby player passes through that does not have someone he has played against!<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/clare-methody-inst-006.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/clare-methody-inst-006-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"clare, methody, inst 006\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5905\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nWhat an honour for Richard to play against the most successful and best Lions Captain ever!<\/p>\n<p>As Willie John quipped, &#8220;Well done Richard, I will finally shake your hand and say well done to CI on winning the senior cup final that year, but you did drop the ball on scoring that final try.&#8221; Such is rugby, 30 years later and they are still arguing about who was the better team.<\/p>\n<p>Billy Andys is run by rugby people then, not a bad start! <\/p>\n<p>We were seated in the newly extended restaurant, warm and homely, the traditional surroundings were superb. Everything clean and tidy and a fairly decent crowd for a Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n<p>The food was spectacular. Scallops Starter and Steak Medium Rare for main course, with veg, chips, onion rings, and for dessert a beautiful chocolate brownie!<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/clare-methody-inst-012.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/clare-methody-inst-012-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"clare, methody, inst 012\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5906\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As Willie John, &#8221; I don&#8217;t normally order steak but having been to Billy andys before I knew it would be irrisistible &#8211; It was and we thoroughly recommend it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We shall finish then with two things<\/p>\n<p>First a picture of Richard sailing through the air to score the winning try in the Senior Cup Final of 1979\/80<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/clare-methody-inst-007.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/clare-methody-inst-007-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"clare, methody, inst 007\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5902\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Second a picture of Willie John McBride the most successful lion ever.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/wjm.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/wjm-234x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"1853516GI68_E35266955\" width=\"234\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5903\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>He says Richard dropped the ball. To get Richards version why not have a meal at Billy Andys and ask him yourself what it was like to play against Willie John.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billyandys.com\"> Billy Andy&#8217;s website &#8211; CLICK HERE &#8211; <\/a> <\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><a \nTel: 028 28 270648\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First things first &#8211; Superb food! We arrived at Billy Andy&#8217;s to meet Penny &#038; Willie John McBride who had kindly agreed to carry out a review of the restaurant. Richard Hunter the owner greeted us and immediately the rugby memories began to flow. In fact, Richard played against Willie John in the senior cup [&hellip;]<\/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":[3655,938],"class_list":["post-5900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ulster-rugby","tag-billy-andys-restaurant","tag-willie-john-mcbride"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5900","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=5900"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5908,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5900\/revisions\/5908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}