Andy Dunne joined Nathan for The Saturday Panel on Off the Ball ahead of the Champions Cup final between Leinster and Racing 92.

Although the French side came up short in Bilbao on Sunday, Dunne reflected on the Parisian's flamboyant history, noting: "Way back when I was in Harlequins, Harlequins had a relationship with Eden Park, the clothing manufacturer, and their logo is a pink dicky bow. 

"And, for some reason, some ex-Harlequins players went to the French Championship final and met up with guys from Eden Park - one of whom was Frank Mesnel - one of the founders and he told me where the pink dickey bow for Eden Park came from. 

"And, it actually came from Racing Club. So, Frank Mesnel was a player, Jean Baptiste Lafond and Eric Blanc - they were the three founders of Eden Park and they were all playing in the French Championship sides of the '80s for Racing.

"And what happened was, as a protest for racism in the crowd at a French quarter-final. They were booing one of the black players on the Racing team so for the semi-final in '87 - every player painted their face black with boot polish for the semi-final in 1987 and they went out and won the semi-final.

"And for the final, they said 'we've got to do something eccentric' so they all wore dickey bows in their collar. So, he told me this and I thought it was the most amazing thing and I thought he was embellishing it and he wasn't because it's in the history books - I went back and looked.

"So they lost the final in '87 and they got back to the final in 1990 and I think they played Toulon and for the warm-up, they arrived on bicycles and they cycled around the Parc des Princes, where the final was, with baskets of bread and wine and at half-time they had champagne and they won the final!

"That has gone down in the annals of history as one of the most flamboyant and most French things you could ever do - how could you not love a club that operates like that?"