TY - JOUR A1 - Rivero Herráiz, Antonio AU - Sánchez García, Raúl T1 - The British Influence in the Birth of Spanish Sport Y1 - 2011 SN - 09523367 UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11268/229 AB - Sports started to gain relevance in Spain around the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century as a leisure and health option of the upper classes imported from Britain. Its early development was intertwined with the spread of other kinds of physical activities with much more tradition on the continent: gymnastics and physical education. First played by the ruling classes aristocracy and high bourgeoisie - sports permeated towards petty bourgeoisie and middle classes in urban areas such as Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastian and Santander. This pattern meant that the expansion of sports was unavoidably tied to the degree of industrialisation and cultural modernisation of the country. Since 1910, and mainly during the 1920s, sport grew in popularity as a spectacle and, to a much lesser degree, as a practice among the Spanish population. KW - Deporte KW - Investigación histórica LA - eng ER -