Historically an amateur sport, in 1995 the International Rugby Board ( IRB ) removed restrictions on payments to players, making the game openly professional at the highest level for the first time.

Rugby union was an amateur sport until the IRB declared the game ' open ' in 1995, removing restrictions on payments to players.

In 1979, Benetton first sponsored their ( then amateur ) local rugby team, A. S. Rugby Treviso.

The British envoy Lord Rugby was equally critical of what he called a " slipshod and amateur " move.

* Casper Cannibal RFC an amateur rugby football team in the Eastern Rockies Rugby Football Union.

* Excelsior Rugby Club, an amateur rugby team that plays in the ILT Southland Wide Premier Division

Shaw Cross Sharks are perhaps the most famous amateur Rugby League club in the area.

Millom Rugby League Club is the oldest existing amateur rugby league club in the world having been founded in 1873.

The governing body of rugby union in England, Rugby Football Union ( RFU ), long resisted leagues as it was believed that leagues would increase ' dirty ' play and put pressure on clubs to pay their players ( thus breaking the amateur ethos ).

* Zinzan Brooke – New Zealand rugby union international, who formerly played amateur rugby for Windsor Rugby Football Club.

Matthew Holbeche Bloxam ( 12 May 1805 – 24 April 1888 ), a native of Rugby, Warwickshire, England, was an amateur archeologist and Warwickshire antiquary.

Dalkeith RFC is an amalgamation of two amateur rugby clubs, Dalkeith High School FPs and Dalkeith Rugby Football Club.

The King George's Field plays host to the town's amateur Rugby League club Adlington Rangers and the towns Association Football pub teams.

With the Rugby League Group, he highlighted the lack of official recognition to rugby league in the form of Honours, was instrumental in the lifting of a ban on rugby league in the British armed forces in 1994 and helped the sport to expand beyond its heartlands more freely by exerting pressure on the Rugby Football Union to end its discrimination against even amateur league players.

Gosforth Rugby Football Club continued as an amateur side working in partnership with Northumbria University, and currently play at the training ground of the Newcastle Falcons, Druid Park.

The split in rugby in 1895 between what became rugby league and rugby union arose as a direct result of a dispute over the pretence of a strict enforcement of its amateur status-clubs in Leeds and Bradford were fined after compensating players for missing work, whilst at the same time the Rugby Football Union ( RFU ) was allowing other players to be paid.

Certain teams faced with these circumstances wanted to pay so-called ' broken time ' money to their players to compensate them for missing paid work due to their playing commitments, but this contravened the amateur policy of the Rugby Football Union ( RFU ).

Nowadays, somewhat ironically, while rugby union no longer makes the professional-amateur distinction, the professional-amateur split still exists within rugby league with the British Amateur Rugby League Association ( BARLA ) strictly amateur, though it allows some ex-professionals to play provided they are no longer under contract.

Back in the amateur ranks he rejoined his former club, Bradford & Bingley as Director of Rugby, guiding them to promotion to North One in his first season and then taking them straight through in 2003-04 to a second successive promotion to National League Three ( North ) and also winning the Intermediate Cup at Twickenham.

He now plays amateur rugby union for Windsor Rugby Club in Berkshire, England.

Joining Bath Rugby as a scrum-half straight from university, in these amateur times his day job was working for Lloyds Bank.

Rugby was a strictly amateur code of football and imposed bans and restrictions on players who were paid to play.

The British Amateur Rugby League Association ( BARLA ) was created in 1973 in Huddersfield by a group of enthusiasts concerned about the dramatic disappearance of many amateur leagues and clubs.

Rugby Canada was incorporated in 1974, and stems from the Canadian Rugby Football Union, a body established in 1884 that now governs amateur Canadian football as Football Canada ; and the now-defunct Rugby Union of Canada, established in 1929.

International amateur radio ALE High Frequency channels are frequency coordinated with all Regions of the International Amateur Radio Union ( IARU entity of ITU ), for international, regional, national, and local use in the Amateur Radio Service.

At the same time, officials in Canada and the Soviet Union negotiated an arrangement that would see the top players of each nation – amateur or professional – play in an eight game " Summit Series " in September 1972 between the world's two greatest hockey nations.

In the film, Rocky Balboa plans to retire from boxing after regaining his title from Clubber Lang in Rocky III while an amateur boxer from the Soviet Union, Ivan Drago ( played by Dolph Lundgren ), makes a bid to enter professional boxing.

He was elected as a member of the International Astronomical Union in 1966 ; having twice edited the Union's General Assembly newsletters he remains the only amateur astronomer to be a member of the IAU.

At the age of fifteen, Douglas began an amateur career in boxing at the One Big Union ( OBU ) gym in Winnipeg.

* Harry Buermeyer of the New York Athletic Club became the first official amateur heavyweight boxing champion in America, while recording the first knockout at Madison Square Garden by beating George Lee of the Union Athletic Club of Boston.

The Walloon cultural movement includes the Union Culturelle Wallonne, an organization of over 200 amateur theatre circles, writers ' groups, and school councils.

Involved in local amateur drama, aged 17 he appeared as Oberon in an open-air production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Play and Pageant Union.

The top amateur teams left the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association, which allowed professionals, to form the new Inter-Provincial Amateur Hockey Union ( IPAHU ), a purely amateur league.

The ARRL is also the international secretariat of the International Amateur Radio Union, which performs a similar role internationally, advocating for amateur radio interests before the International Telecommunications Union and the World Administrative Radio Conferences.

Fortrose Union are the local amateur football club and play at the King George V field in the east of the village.

That same year, 1930, he was honored with the first James E. Sullivan Award, awarded annually by the Amateur Athletic Union to the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States.

In the September 2007 edition of Golf Monthly magazine Bedale Golf Course was featured as one of the six best courses in Yorkshire and in September 2009 the Club hosted the Yorkshire Golf Union Inter District Championship with the best 48 amateur golfers in the county.

The International Amateur Radio Union ( IARU ) is an international confederation of national amateur radio organisations that allows a forum for common matters of concern and collectively represents matters to the International Telecommunication Union ( ITU ).

The Radio Regulations of the International Telecommunication Union allow amateur radio operations in the frequency range 1, 240 to 1, 300 MHz, and amateur satellite up-links are allowed in the range 1, 260 to 1, 270 MHz.

The Radio Regulations of the International Telecommunication Union allow amateur radio operations in the frequency range 10. 000 to 10. 500 GHz, and amateur satellite operations are allowed in the range 10. 450 to 10. 500 GHz.

The Radio Regulations of the International Telecommunication Union allow amateur radio and amateur satellite operations in the frequency range 24. 000 GHz to 24. 250 GHz, which is known as the 1. 2-centimeter band.