The game's 'shamateur' status was well known as players were paid under the counter or via a web of sponsors and backers, but we are now in a world where loyalty is a little-used word.

The old shamateur ethos was dead and the era of whole time professionalism came about, and with it the modern dominance of Leinster and Munster in the Heineken Cup.

Now the s**t has hit the fan the domino affect could break the bank and shake Croke Park to its shamateur foundations.

Welsh rugby's so-called amateur game has alway been the 'Shamateur' game.

`Shamateurism' was already rife, and the biggest shamateur of them all was the great W.G.

All the riders were officially amateurs, though the money involved in the game led to the Shanghai races contributing the word shamateur to the English language.

A combination of old players, leading businessmen and legislators from shamateur days looks a good mix.

There wasn't a lot about in the shamateur days at the end of my race career."

He was already an established Test bowler when, tired by jousting with the establishment, and Lancashire captain and arch 'Shamateur' Archie MacLaren in particular, he joined Staffordshire.

Considering these facts, as a part of detente tendencies between East and West, exhibition matches between Eastern "shamateurs" and Western professionals were organized.

Already we have the selfcentred shamateurs being paraded before us, a motley collection of skinny women and muscle-bound men whose only excuse for any substandard performance is usually parroted as lack of funding.

At this stage players were still officially amateurs but were increasingly branded 'shamateurs' for receiving financial assistance well in excess of the amounts allowed by the International Tennis Federation (ITF).