With the Top 14 Final in Paris on Saturday between La Rochelle and Toulouse, here is an excerpt from one of the chapters in my book The Bleus Brothers.

In the early morning summer sunshine in Neilly-Sur-Seine, Café du Marche is just waking up and following its regular routine. The backboard menus are getting their first taste of chalk while I am getting my much needed first taste of coffee. But today is no ordinary day. This evening 14 miles up the road, one of the most wonderful annual rugby occasions will take place.

A Top 14 Final is a rugby and cultural event like no other. It is Mardi Gras and Oktoberfest all rolled into one.

From early morning the TGVs roll into Gare de Lyon and Gare Montparnasse with their colourful human cargo disembarking and immediately heading for a station espresso with the speed and footwork of Serge Blanco.

The day of the final is an extremely long one with kick off at 9 p.m. Wherever you go in the French capital on that particular June Saturday, there are lines of families in team shirts sitting out in geometric lines of tables as far as the eye can see soaking up the sun’s rays amid the wafting aroma of steak frites.

The glass carafes of red, white and rosé glisten in the sun. This is as much a part of final day as the match itself, and just as grueling, with cheese and coffee and, maybe even a brandy to get through before setting off for Stade de France with a heavy stomach and a much lighter wallet.

If you have never been to Paris for the final, I would recommend you add it to your bucket list.

It’s not just the fans who add the colour and joie de vivre to the French rugby season’s climax. The finals of 1987 and 1990 were memorable for more than just the rugby thanks to Racing 92, the Parisian outfit, and their famous fly-half Franck Mesnel who is my selection to wear the number 10 shirt in this exclusive French XV. 

Franck agonized over choice of career and had to make a difficult decision to become either a pilot or an architect. He eventually decided on the latter.

Mesnel was the ringleader of a group of eccentric Racing players who got together when they decided to mock their own image as capital city fancy dans who were known collectively as Le Show-Bizz.

“We always kept our values of respect and rugby values, but we had that impertinence” says Mesnel.

Le Show-Bizz painted their boots gold, wore fake bald heads, ran out in blazers and blackened their faces.

“These acts were a motivation for us, and each time we did one of these jokes we knew we had to back it up.”

Racing lost to Toulon 15-12 in the 1987 French Championship final. They wore pink bow ties for the first time but three years later they went to another level when they faced a hard-nosed down-to-earth and tough Agen team in the season finale at Parc des Princes.

Racing won 22-12 after extra time but the match is best remembered for the incredible sight of Mesnel and his Le Show-Bizz colleagues quaffing champagne on the pitch during the half-time team talk.

“One of our wingers who was injured told us he would come on at half-time with the champagne” says Mesnel. “It was real champagne on a silver salver. I just remember seeing the faces of Pierre Berbizier and the Agen team looking at us in amazement, but it did us good since we won the second half.”

President François Mitterrand left that final with a gift from French international Jean Baptiste Lafond in the form of a pink bow tie which the full back presented to him before kick-off.

Le Show-Bizz became such a phenomenon and attracted so much attention that Franck Mesnel, Eric Blanc and Lafond released a record, a single entitled “Quand tu marques un essai” (“When you score a try.”)