A former footballer is hoping to win big after opening a new gastro pub.
Richard Hamer, who was an apprentice with Newport County and represented Wales at junior level, has opened the new business venture in his home town of Blackwood.
The Newport haulage firm boss, universally known by his nickname Rioch after the former Aston Villa and Derby County player Bruce, has ploughed what he says is a “substantial amount of money” into transforming the former Rock and Fountain Pub and Riverside Restaurant, at Woodfieldside, into Bistro 8.
He said: “The name of the new place is because of three coincidences.
“My daughter Lisa was both on the eighth, this is the eighth pub I have opened and I played at number eight for Wales at junior level in my first appearance which was against Northern Ireland.
“I live locally so I’ve known the pub all my life. In fact it was the first pub that I had a drink in, illegally mind, when I was 16.”
The pub, which had been closed since last year before Richard took it on, now has a mixed Welsh and Spanish themed restaurant as the manager Sami and his wife Mari, the chef, are from Spain.
Dating back at least 200 years, the road and riverside restaurant now occupies the building that was originally a toll house for the bridge that crosses the neighbouring Sirhowy River.