A brief history of Paddy Power’s Lucky Pants

After watching boxing icon Floyd Mayweather flex majestically in his special edition Paddy Power Lucky Pants ahead of his bout with UFC kingpin Conor McGregor last night, the memories started flooding back at Power Tower.

From the floors of Dublin City University’s dorms, to the fields of Ukraine at Euro 2012, crashing the 2014 Brit Awards and all the way to bright lights of Las Vegas last night. Paddy’s pants have certainly come a long way and it all started with an out-of-form, on-loan Arsenal striker.

The lucky briefs have a history richer than Money Mayweather himself, so we thought we’d reminisce on where it all began four our favourite fashion item.

Lord Nicklas Bendtner

He may be plying his trade at Rosenborg these days, but back in 2012 the former Gunners frontman really put Paddy’s pants on the map at that year’s European Championships.

Portugal may have finished 3-2 winners in Group B clash with Denmark in Lviv, but Nicklas Bendtner enhanced his reputation with a brace of headers. Oh, and he happened to be wearing a pair of PP lucky pants as he did it.

What people may not be aware of is that Bendtner forgot to flash his pants after his first goal. That led to much weeping from the mischief planners at Paddy Power. However, not only did he manage to score again, he remembered to flash his resplendent undergarments to the world.

The fact Serbia were fined less for their racist fans just makes Nicklas a saint in our eyes and he made Paddy Power Lucky Pants world famous that day. They have gone on to become a symbol of the cheekiness and irreverence inherent in our brand DNA ever since.

Derek Chisora makes Haye

While not quite in the Mayweather category, our lucky green underpants showed up at Upton Park in summer 2012 where they were worn by heavyweight boxer Dereck “Del Boy” Chisora at the weigh-in for his eagerly grudge match against David Haye.

‘Delboy’ was hoping the pants would work their magic in the ring, but luck wasn’t on his side as Haye went on to dismantled him inside five rounds. However, it didn’t deliver a knockout blow to the pants which remained as popular as ever with punters.

Prince Harry rejects us ever so politely

Never one to shy away from some questionable fashion choices, we challenged Prince Harry to don the legendary underwear in exchange for a massive donation to the charity of his choice.

https://twitter.com/paulmallon1/status/255646863502495744

We didn’t even require photographic evidence that he’d tried them on, all we wanted was his royal word. Unfortunately, the party prince regally refused. However, he was kind enough to send us a lovely letter explaining his reasons.

That memo can now be found proudly hanging in the first floor of the Power Tower for all to see.

Daft Punk debrief The Brits

Let’s be honest, The Brit Awards are s**t and we’re in bad need of a de-pantsing. In an effort to make it a little more interesting, we took two interns and dressed them up like internationally renowned dance act Daft Punk. Then, we pushed them out of a limo onto the red carpet.

The media and event organisers were so thrilled at the idea of having the elusive Daft Punk at the event that they didn’t think to check for tickets or ID. It wasn’t until our interns dropped their trousers to reveal our lucky drawers that they were finally rumbled.