The Birth of the Sports Press in Spain Within the Regenerationist Context of the Late Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This study tackles the birth and development of the sports press in Spain from 1865 to 1899, linked to the need of a bourgeois society to emulate the English lifestyle, characterised by the sports craze. The sports press in Spain fitted extremely well in the late nineteenth century, encouraged by the Regenerationist movement. This is clear by the growth in number of sports publications, by the promotion of physical culture by Regenerationism and by the use of such publications to spread Regenerationism's approach to sport. Both primary and secondary sources were used in the research process. With regard to primary sources, archives containing specific documentation on the origins and early years of the sports press in Spain were examined. A total of 85 sports publications were counted in 18 different towns, but mostly concentrated in Madrid (28) and Barcelona (24). The most widely represented sports in these were cycling (25) and hunting (18). Among those publications that were not specific to one sport, 13 titles included the English-language term ‘sport’, and only two incorporated the newly coined Spanish word, ‘deporte’. Los Deportes (1897–1910) is the most important publication of this period and the foundation stone of modern sports journalism in Spain.

Keywords::

• sports press
• Regenerationism
• history of sport
• nineteenth century
• Spain

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to deeply thank Mireia Martínez-Bou for her outstanding translation, in particular, bearing in mind the difficulties posed by this article both in technical and linguistic terms, since it contains original quotes from texts going back to the nineteenth century.

Notes

^1. Regenerationism was an intellectual movement between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that reflected in an objective and scientific manner on the causes of Spain's decline as a nation. It must be distinguished from the Generation of 98, with which it is often confused, since, although both movements shared a similar pessimist judgement about Spain, the Regenerationists expressed it in an objective, documentary and scientific manner, while the Generation of 98 tended to the literary, subjective and artistic. Their most prominent representative was the Aragonese Joaquín Costa, with his motto ‘School, larder and double-lock the tomb of El Cid’. The Regenerationist intellectuals sought to forge a new idea of Spain based on authenticity, which made it essential to unmask the deceptions of the fake official Spain through the dissemination of their studies in widely circulated magazines. Many of these magazines predated the publications associated with the Generation of 98. The first one was without a doubt RevistaContemporánea, founded in 1875 by José del Perojo, a man deeply imbued with the Regenerationist ideals. It lasted until 1907, and in its early days had numerous contributors associated with the Institución Libre de Enseñanza.

^2.Domínguez, “La práctica de la modernidad,” 56.

^3. One steady step is the project led by the library at the Catalan Sports Council of the Catalan government to house a historical sports library.

^4.Pastor, La educación física, 12–13.

^5.Pujadas and Santacana, L'esport és noticia.

^6. Namely, the Digital Newspapers Library at the National Library of Spain in Madrid, the Virtual Library of Historical Newspapers and the project Archive of Old Catalan Magazines (ARCA) at the Library of Catalonia.

^7.Altabella, “Historia de la prensa.”

^8. Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, 100 años de prensa; Figueras, “Notes sobre un segle”; Pujadas and Santacana, L'esport és noticia; Pujadas and Santacana, “Prensa, deporte y cultura” and Berasategui, “Datos para la historia.”

^9.Izquierdo, “El periodismo velocipédico español.”

^10. Pastor, La educación física.

^11. Since such practices were imported from England, and given the lack of a term for them in the local language, the Spanish sports press used the English language term ‘sport’. It is not until 1895, with the periodical El Deporte Velocipédico, and especially in 1897, when the publication Los Deportes appears, that the English term begins to be gradually replaced by the Spanish word deporte.

^12.Mason, El deporte en Gran Bretaña, 106–8.

^13. San Martín, “De los juegos corporales.”

^14.Perraki, “Entrée du sport.”

^15.Wille, La Tour de France, 17–24.

^16.Viada, Manual del Sport, 15.

^17. Torrebadella, “Contribución a la historia” and Torrebadella and Olivera, “Las cien obras clave.”

^18. “El Sport” (Revista mensual de agricultura, no. 21, 1852, 323–6).

^19.Climent, Historia de la rehabilitación, 70.

^20.Vallejo-Miranda, “Estudios y costumbres extranjeras,” 323.

^21.Pujadas, “De las élites,” 24–5.

^22. Torrebadella, “Orígenes de una ciudad.”

^23.Torrebadella-Flix, “Orígenes del fútbol.”

^24. Pérez Galdós, El Campo, no. 2.

^25. “Carreras de caballos en la península” (El Campo, no. 1, 1876, 10–12). Writer Benito Pérez Galdós (1843–1920) is also the mouthpiece for the archetype of ‘new man’. Ríos, “La imagen del hombre.”

^26. Manuel Alonso Olea in the prologue to Mason, El deporte en Gran Bretaña, 15–16.

Anglophile European travellers in favour of educational reform introduced these games in their respective countries, where there was no comparable sports precedent, but where at the same time the social, cultural or ideological conditions were favourable and fostered a climate of acceptance. (Mandell, Historia cultural del deporte, 163)

^27.Lagardera, “De la aristócrata gimnástica” and Pujadas and Santacana, “El club deportivo.”

^28. Central School of Gymnastics Teachers, Legislative provision, XX.

^29. Rahola, F. “Artículos de género inglés. Los ejercicios corporales [Articles of English genre. Bodily exercises],” (La Ilustración, March 4, 1883, 2).

^30. Ibid.

^31.Elias and Dunning, Deporte y ocio and Mandell, Historia cultural del deporte.

^32. Torrebadella, “Orígenes del fútbol,” 85.

^33. The Generation of 98 is the name traditionally used to bring together a group of Spanish writers, essayists and poets that were profoundly affected by the moral, political and social crisis caused in Spain by the military defeat in the Spanish-American War leading to the loss of Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba and the Philippines in 1898. The famous philosopher José Ortega y Gasset distinguished two generations around the dates of 1857 and 1872, one integrated by Ganivet and Unamuno, and another one made up by the youngest members of the group. His disciple Julián Marías used the concept of ‘historical generation’ and the central date of 1871 to establish the members of the Generation of 98: Miguel de Unamuno, Ángel Ganivet, Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Jacinto Benavente, Carlos Arniches, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, José María Gabriel y Galán, Manuel Gómez-Moreno, Miguel Asín Palacios, Serafín Álvarez Quintero, Pío Baroja, José Martínez Ruíz (Azorín), Joaquín Álvarez Quintero, Ramiro de Maeztu, Manuel Machado, Antonio Machado and Francisco Villaespesa.

^34. Viada, Manual del Sport, 16.

^35. Ibid., 17.

^36.Rivero and Sánchez, “The British Influence”; Pujadas and Santacana, “El club deportivo” and Domínguez, “La práctica de la modernidad.”

^37.González, “Sport, Nationalism and Militarism.”

^38.Pastor, “La extravagante difusión,” 19.

^39. Pastor, “La extravagante difusión,” 20.

^40.Carmena, El periodismo taurino.

^41. Ibid. and Forneas, “El periodismo taurino.”

^42. “Folletín. El hipódromo” (El Heraldo, May 15, 1846, 1–3).

^43.Pizarroso, “Notas para una historia,” 307.

^44. However, the bullfighting illustrated weekly La Lidia (Madrid, 1882–1899), founded by Julián Palacios, started with its issue of March 1, 1894, a second period in which it aspired to increase its contents in the fields of Art, Literature and Sport. In this sense, the second issue included a sports section (cycling, Basque pelota and little more), but it disappeared after a few articles. Its first article, “Boleas y reveses” (“Volleys and backhands”), by Antonio Peña y Goñi, told the readers of La Lidia for the first time about the new affection for modern sport in the following fashion:

La Lidia therefore must not neglect all things related to modern pelota game, but rather watch with high interest, as it deserves, the noble exercise that will contribute so much, God willing, to the regeneration of our frail race. [Peña, A. “Boleas y Reveses” (La Lidia, no. 2, April 1, 1894, 10)]

La Lidia was considered the best bullfighting publication of the last third of the nineteenth century (Forneas, “Orígenes y evolución,” 388).

^45.Acuña, Fundamentos socio-culturales, 238.

^46. Altabella, “Historia de la prensa”; Berasategui, “Datos para la historia”; Lacalle, “Orígenes de la prensa” and Pujadas and Santacana, L'esport és noticia.

^47.Gómez, Historia del periodismo español and Seoane and Saiz, Historia del periodismo.

^48.Dunning, El fenómeno deportivo, 69.

^49. Abroad it is often thought that the national sport in Spain is bullfighting. A big mistake: bullfighting to Spaniards is but a spectacle, and it is only practiced by people who make a profession and a living out of it. Now and again, people foreign to this profession will attend tientas [testing of bulls] and even partake in them; and also amateur bullfights are often organised; but neither have become a regular exercise, nor have any societies been founded or rules been established to give a sport-like character to an activity that could doubtless acquire it. (Viada, Manual del Sport, 17–18)

^50. Forneas, “Orígenes y evolución” and Haro, “El estudio del periodismo.”

^51.La Ilustración Española y Americana, no. 38, 1880, 51.

^52. Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781–1832) was a German idealist philosopher who influenced the liberal pedagogical current of the ILE. Krausism is the term identifying this current, introduced in Spain by Julián Sanz del Río (1814–1869) circa 1854, after his sojourn in Germany, with the publication of El Ideal de la Humanidad para la Vida (1860), where he presented the thinking of the German philosopher. Krausism is a German idealist philosophical current that defends the following principles: (a) God is to be found in the development of mankind rather than in miracles; (b) cultivating human reason is the essential element to guarantee that the religious feeling is not mere superstition; (c) personal realisation must be sought both through the body and through the spirit; (d) the supremacy of science and reason as a supreme criterion in human relations. Krausism therefore is a humanist philosophy as well as deistic and rationalist.

^53.González, “Del Antiguo al Nuevo Régimen,” 29.

^54.Sanz, El Ideal de la Humanidad.

^55.Giner, Estudios sobre educación.

^56.González,The New Man.

^57.San Martín, “De los juegos corporales,” 63.

^58.Giner, Campos escolares.

^59.Otero, “Las relaciones entre Pierre.”

^60. Stuart Hembest Capper, who arrived in Spain as the private tutor of the children of the English ambassador in Madrid, is considered the person who introduced English sports in the ILE in 1882. Before that, Francisco Giner brought back from one of his trips to London with Manuel Bartolomé Cossío, the first football ball known in Spain. Noted in Jiménez-Landi, La Institución Libre de Enseñanza, 92.

^61.Payà, “Joc corporal, esport,” 120–5.

^62.Giner, “Los problemas de la educación.”

^63.Ballester and Perdiguero, “Salud e instrucción primaria”; López, Historia de la educación and Payà, “Joc corporal, esport.”

^64. A large part of this society moved away from the urban centres and their “corrupt” and polluted atmosphere, and went in search of the peaceful and picturesque villages offered by the healthy country life. Peasant arts such as agriculture, gardening, hunting or horse and cattle raising became a hobby for the wealthier classes of society. (Pérez Galdós, El Campo, no. 1, 1876, 1–2)

^65. Viada, Manual del Sport.

^66. Martín, “De los juegos corporales.”

^67. Rahola, F. “Artículos de género inglés. Los ejercicios corporales [Articles of English genre. Bodily exercises],” (La Ilustración, March 4, 1883, 1–2).

^68. Pujadas and Santacana, L'esport és noticia.

^69. Altabella, “Historia de la prensa” and Lacalle, “Orígenes de la prensa.”

^70. Pujadas and Santacana, L'esport és noticia.

^71. The Sexenio Revolucionario (1868–1874) makes up one of the most tumultuous periods in Spanish contemporary history. The liberal revolutionary period provoked a series of political and armed confrontations in a short period of time: the dethronement of Isabella II, a constituent assembly, the regency of general Serrano, the democratic monarchy with Amadeus of Savoy, the First Republic and finally the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty with Alphonse XII.

^72.Uhagón and Leguina, Estudios bibliográficos, 98.

^73.Bautista, “Nuestro programa,” 1–2.

^74.Bautista, “A nuestros suscritores,” 4.

^75. Only 19 issues were published until 1867.

^76. Uhagón and Leguina, Estudios bibliográficos.

^77. Ibid.

^78.La Gaceta del Sport (Madrid, 1873), a publication mainly devoted to cover the news on horse racing and hunting, was founded by Federico Huesca in collaboration with Navarro, Borrell and Alcalá Galiano. It was probably the first periodical publication in Spain to have the English language term ‘sport’ in its name. It would later merge into José Luis Albareda's El Campo. José Luis Albareda Sezde (1828–1897) was a journalist and politician who occupied various ministries during the liberal government of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta. As the Minister for Development in 1881, he defended the bill by Member of Parliament Manuel Becerra, whereby the Central School of Gymnastics Teacher (1887–1892) was created on March 9, 1883.

^79.Badia, De la caza, 211.

^80.La Ilustración Venatoria (Madrid, 1878–1885), subtitled ‘Periodical on hunting and fishing, sport and country recreations of animal raising and acclimatisation and everything related to agriculture and the delights of country life’, appeared on January 10, 1878. It was edited and directed by the Sevillian journalist and politician José Gutiérrez de la Vega (1824–1900). Gómez Aparicio, Historia del Periodismo Español, 578; Tierra, “La actividad físico-deportiva” and Fradejas, “José Gutiérrez de la Vega.”

^81.Argullol, La caza, 47.

^82. Berasategui, “Datos para la historia,” 157.

^83. On El Gimnasta Español and El Gimnasio, Masferrer wrote that they were ‘Small publications, stuffed with doctrine, packed with articles proclaiming, praising, justifying the need for men and women to practise gymnastics in order to achieve the health that the Homeland was in need of.’ Masferrer, “Periodismo deportivo I” (La Vanguardia, January 1, 1927, 15).

^84.Torrebadella, “Las primeras revistas profesionales.”

^85. Izquierdo, “El periodismo velocipédico español,” 172.

^86. A publication on which we have little information and that, according to Altabella (1987), served to make public the information and drawings about the velocipede that Joaquín Costa sent from Paris.

^87.Izquierdo and Gómez, “Los orígenes del ciclismo,” 11.

^88. Tierra, “La actividad físico-deportiva,” 222.

^89.El Ciclista, no. 1, 1891, 1.

^90. Pujadas and Santacana, L'esport és noticia, 14.

^91. Ibid., 16.

^92. Izquierdo, “El periodismo velocipédico español.”

^93. Already in 1888, man of letters and journalist Mariano de Cavia (1855–1920) suggested the Spanish term ‘deporte’ as a translation for the English word ‘sport’. Torrebadella, “Repertorio bibliográfico inédito,” 61.

^94. José María Sierra, a publicist and businessman from Madrid who owned the Velódromo de Chamartín (1896), is regarded as one of the chief promoters of Spanish cycling of the turn of the century.

^95.El Deporte Velocipédico, no. 1, 1895, 2. (Editorial team, “Nuestros propósitos”).

^96.Anguera, Esports a Reus'92, 8–13.

^97. Izquierdo and Gómez, “Los orígenes del ciclismo,” 10.

^98.Aragonés, “Resumen o balance ciclista,” 84–85.

^99. Ibid., 11.

^100. This refers to the typical Spanish ball game played with the hand, a paddle or a basket against a fronton or wall. It is also known as ‘Basque pelota’ since the Basque Country was the area where it enjoyed greater popularity over the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Today it is still a popular game in Northern Spain.

^101. Berasategui quotes El Frontón in 1883, 10 years before its foundation in 1893. We believe this is due to a transcription error. Berasategui, “Datos para la historia,” 157.

^102. Pujadas and Santacana, L'esport és noticia, 19.

^103.Márquez, “Introducción,” 1.

^104. That period also saw an important transformation among entertainment magazines, which were gradually dedicating more space to the new recreational physical practices as sport gained followers. One clear example was the weekly El Cardo (Madrid, 1894–1905), initially subtitled ‘Political, Literary and Artistic Weekly’ that would later change to ‘Literary, Artistic, Political and Sports Magazine’. In 1902, it would be redefined as a magazine on ‘Literature, Art, Politics, Hunting, Fishing, Cycling, Motoring, Regattas, Horse Sport, Football’ until the start of the magazine's second period in 1903, when its title would change to Arte y Sport. Seoane and Saiz, Historia del periodismo, 179–82.

^105.de Cavia, “La Barra,” 42.

^106.Frontón is the walled court used as playing area for Basque pelota.

^107. In 1903, Antonio Viada wrote about the little esteem for the sports press from the public and the characteristics of the national sports press:

Quality press, that is to say, the press that strives for the favour of the public, that dedicates exclusively to providing them a good service and working towards their enlightenment and improvement, the kind of press that would be set to spreading the beneficial sporting practices, such press barely exists in Spain … Sport propaganda is necessarily limited to the work of individual associations, highly commendable and enthusiastic, and that, no less commendable, of publications with little circulation, which are vocational rather than commercial. With a few exceptions, whenever newspapers have reported on sport issues it has been … without grasping the social reach and role of sport and nearly always demonstrating a complete lack of awareness on the issue. (Viada, Manual del Sport, 19–20)

^108. We shall be delighted to see our very modest efforts yield at least an indulgent welcome from our readers, and at the same time serve as a spur to guide and encourage our young society towards these manly interests, which always demonstrate the support of an energetic race of virile feelings. For this purpose, our next issues will include the latest news gathered from all of Europe on all the exercises of sport, such as horse riding, athletics, roller skating, pigeon and target shooting contests, fencing bouts, tourist trips; in short, all the things we encounter that help achieve the goal we have set ourselves. (Font, E. La Dinastía, November 3, 1892, 1–2)

^109.Torrebadella, “Los orígenes de una ciudad.”

^110. The sports press also emerged in other locations – in Cadiz, the illustrated weekly El Sport Español (1877) announced itself as the first Spanish sports magazine. This publication covered such activities as pigeon shooting, ball game, velocipedes or regattas. Following the model set by the British publications, it had little impact and its editors lamented that in Spain there was little interest in sport, causing it to last no more than a year. Altabella, “Historia de la prensa”; Izquierdo, “El periodismo velocipédico español” and Solís, Historia del periodismo gaditano.

On December 1, 1876, the first issue of El Campo, a fortnightly magazine on Agriculture, Gardening and Sport directed by José Luis Albareda and later by Julián Settier, was published in Madrid. Published until 1891, it included some short articles and chronicles on sport. The Madrid press referred to El Campo as the ‘periodical of Spanish sport’ (Ecos de Madrid, May 23, 1878, 1). The sports coverage included news on horse races, hunting, pigeon shooting competitions, bullfights, regattas and the emergence of new sports such as lawn tennis and croquet. Some of these chronicles were part of the section called ‘News from Paris’. El Campo contains references to some of the first ever associations in Spanish sport, such as the Madrid Pigeon Shooting Society (1875), Seville Horse Racing Society (1875), Seville Regatta Club (1875), Seville Society of Regattas (1876), Cadiz Regatta Club (1876), Cadiz Jockey Club (1876), Granada Horse Racing Society (1876) and Jerez de la Frontera Jockey Club (1876).

^111.El Sport began its course in Madrid on September 30, 1887, under the leadership of J. M. Los Santos, and its last issue was published on June 30, 1892. This was a publication dedicated to hobbies, a mixture of culture and sports. Its articles dealt mostly with sport, particularly related to horsing activities and hunting. It also included sections on regattas or cycling, and some interesting articles dedicated to gymnastics stand out. To Tierra (1995, 222), El Sport was ‘the first periodical specifically dedicated to sports’.

^112. Uhagón and Leguina, Estudios bibliográficos, 99.

^113.Crónica del Sport (1893–1896) was an illustrated fortnightly created by novelist Abelardo Ortiz de Pinedo in Madrid. It was a hobbies magazine in which sports news often came from abroad (Seoane and Saiz, Historia del periodismo). The magazine continued the tradition of the early publications in Madrid that tried to address issues on physical education, such as La Ilustración Venatoria, El Campo, El Correo del Sport and El Cardo. Nevertheless, Crónica del Sport made a quality jump, coming across as a deluxe magazine thanks to the beauty of its engravings and illustrations, and the literary level of the articles. Crónica del Sport opened its columns to all practitioners of sport and bodily exercises in keeping with the aphorism ‘Mens sana in corpore sano’ (Crónica del Sport, 1893). Surprisingly enough, it included some short chronicles about sports that were virtually unknown in Spain: football, lawn tennis, boxing, swimming or athletics. The most widely reported on sports practices were hunting, fencing and velocipedes, although occasionally there would appear articles related to regattas, horse riding, ball game, bowling, cockfighting, pigeon shooting, gymnastics, children's sport (bodily games), theatre and bullfighting. The last issue was published on December 15, 1896.

^114.Madrid Sport was the successor of El Pelotari (1893).

^115. According to Gómez Aparicio (Historia del Periodismo) and Lacalle (“Orígenes de la prensa”), this publication can be considered the first Spanish magazine dedicated entirely to sport. However, as noted also by Gómez Aparicio (Historia del Periodismo, 579) and Seoane and Saiz (Historia del periodismo, 179), we have not located any issues of it. The only information available is from the various sources that also mention this publication (Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, 100 años de prensa; Berasategui, “Datos para la historia”; Izquierdo, “El periodismo velocipédico español” and Pujadas and Santacana, L'esport és noticia). Torrent and Tasis (Historia de la prensa) do not mention it either, all of which raises the question of whether it existed at all. It is, therefore, a ‘phantom’ publication, one that many talk about but nobody has ever seen.

^116.Berasategui, “Fonts bibliogràfiques per l'estudi,” 183.

^117.Pujadas and Santacana, “Prensa, deporte y cultura.”

^118. Neither did Narciso Masferrer, the president of the Asociación Catalana de Periodistas Deportivos (1911), refer to El Sport Español in 1927 when he published an article on Barcelona's La Vanguardia about the Spanish sports press. In it, he noted that, given the prominence reached by sports at the Barcelona World Fair in 1888, ‘some magazines’ appeared which were ‘very local [and] did not last long’. Masferrer, N. “Periodismo deportivo I” (La Vanguardia, January 1, 1927, 15).

^119. Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, 100 años de prensa.

^120.Los Deportes, 514, 53–4.

^121. Izquierdo, “El periodismo velocipédico español,” 178.

^122. It went through numerous mergers, first in 1898 with El Veloz – organ of national and international cycling – to create Veloz Sport-Barcelona Sport, and later in 1899 with the magazine Los Deportes. In 1901, Barcelona Sport initiated a second period with the same editorial team that first created it.

^123. Narciso Masferrer first started in Madrid, inaugurating the sports section of La Censura (Pernau, Sportman: les millors imatges). He founded the Sociedad Gimnástica Española (1887) and was the director of El Gimnasta (1888), the bulletin of the said society. In Barcelona, he founded and directed Los Deportes (1897), and was related to several journalistic projects such as the Mundo Deportivo (1906), of which he was the founder and director. In 1911, he created and led the Catalan union of sports journalists, Sindicato de Periodistas Deportivos de Cataluña (Torrebadella, “Las primeras revistas profesionales”).

^124. The magazine arrived to many towns as it had numerous delegations run by representatives, most of whom were official gymnastics teachers and members of the Spanish Gymnastics Federation.

^125. Likewise, the newspaper's columns were at the disposal of gymnastics teachers, for whom the publication became a spokes organ: ‘The newspaper that we have created with such thrill and fondness, must be devoted, rather than to the defending, to the improving, developing, and advertising of absolutely all sports’ (Los Deportes, no. 2, 1897, 18).

^126. The editorial team at Los Deportes announced that their journalistic project was not associated to any material or commercial interest. Their sole intention was to offer publicity to achieve the highest development of the practiced sports and reach ‘true regeneration through physical exercises’. For this reason, ‘as Los Deportes develops, our existing societies will acquire greater importance, new ones will be created and we shall march along the never ending path of progress’ (Los Deportes, no. 10, 1899, 162).

^127. … the sports press has lived in our country with great difficulty and thanks only to the enthusiasm of a handful of altruists, eager to conquer an army of supporters to follow their noble initiatives; and the fact that the press devoted solely to exalting the educational concept of the matter has been forced to disappear for lack of an environment that allows meeting the first precept of organic life: breathing … The task of Los Deportes, modest as it may be, but obstinate like none other, working like a constant water drop that hollows the stone, has gradually made way among the general indifference, and today there are very few main towns in Spain where our magazine has not gained some follower who with hardship spreads the ideals that have made it come into life … Despite the general indifference that grieves us, if a small part, ten or fifteen percent, for example, of those practicing gymnastics, fencing, cycling, hunting, water sports, colombiculture, horse riding, motoring, etc., were fond of reading periodicals devoted entirely to exalting these aims, the sports press would be very different, since instead of requiring the support and enthusiasm of a few to sustain it at a height that does not go over average, the publications would be many and good, their editors would be powerful, and the warmth that they would lend each other for the promotion of all sports would be immense, and thus this press would become the first support, brace and development of the sports movement, as is the case in other countries, where a periodical prepares races, organises ramblings, sets records, and where the professional press always shows remarkable initiative in all sorts of events within their speciality. (Los Deportes, no. 12, 1901, 180–1)

^128.Olivera and Torrebadella, “Del sport al deporte.”

^129. Mason, El deporte en Gran Bretaña, 106–7.

^130. Torrebadella, “Los orígenes de una ciudad,” 105–6.

^131. Pujadas and Santacana, “Prensa, deporte y cultura,” 144.

^132.Pujadas (coord.), Catalunya i l'Olimpisme.

^133. The oldest Spanish sports newspaper still published, only survivor of the turn-of-the-century sports press. El Mundo Deportivo is currently the third most circulated sports newspaper out of the four paper editions in Spain (OJD, Oficina de Justificación y Difusión, data from July 2011 to June 2012) (Mundo Deportivo, January 25, 2013, 56).

^134. Altabella, “Historia de la prensa”; Figueras, “Notes sobre un segle.” El Campeón (1894) is quoted by Llaverías (Catálogo de la Biblioteca) as a news magazine for the Barceloneta neighbourhood. We have confirmed that this publication is unrelated to sport.

^135. ‘The latin world strives to learn from the English-speaking world. Let us invent a Spanish-style bears sport! Let us organise foot-ball played by throwing peaches!’ de Cavia, M. “Ludus pro ponoma” (El Imparcial, Madrid, October 21, 1895, 3). See also Olivera and Torrebadella, “Del sport al deporte.”

^136.Torrebadella-Flix and Nomdedeu-Rull, “Foot-ball, futbol, Balompié.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Xavier Torrebadella-Flix

Xavier Torrebadella-Flix is a lecturer at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). He holds a Ph.D. from the Universitat de Lleida and has published in numerous scientific journals. His most recent book is Repertorio Bibliográfico inédito de la Educación Física y el deporte en España, 1800–1939 (Fundación Universitaria Española).

Javier Olivera-Betrán

Javier Olivera-Betrán is a professor at the Institut Nacional d'Educació Física de Catalunya (INEFC) in Barcelona and edits the journal Apunts. Educación Física y Deportes. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Education Sciences from the Universitat de Barcelona. As a collection director at Paidotribo publishers, he has edited 52 books.