ABSTRACT

Under the pen-name of A.S. Hardy, Arthur Joseph Steffens was one of the leading writers of boys’ football stories in the first decades of the twentieth century. Building upon the work of John Springhall, Kelly Boyd, Ernest Turner, Dave Russell and Ali Melling, this article seeks to broaden our knowledge of how football fiction first developed. It does this by exploring the life and stories of A.S. Hardy, as well as some of his contemporaries at the Amalgamated Press. The principal sources are original boys’ papers held at the British Library and census records. The article explores three key areas. Firstly, an overview is provided of Hardy’s life and career, placing his work within the wider growth of boys’ story papers and the success of the Amalgamated Press in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Secondly, it explores how Hardy successfully pioneered the writing of stories placed within the contemporary world of professional football. Finally, it addresses how established conventions of masculine and heroic behaviour were adapted and explored within football stories. It will be argued that Hardy played an important part in developing and popularising the fictional football story in its modern format.

摘要

亚瑟·约瑟夫·史蒂芬斯的笔名是 AS Hardy，他是 20 世纪头几十年男孩足球故事的主要作家之一。本文以约翰·斯普林霍尔、凯利·博伊德、欧内斯特·特纳、戴夫·拉塞尔和阿里·梅林的工作为基础，旨在拓宽我们对足球小说最初是如何发展的认识。它通过探索 AS Hardy 的生活和故事以及他在联合出版社的一些同时代人来做到这一点。主要来源是大英图书馆的原始男孩论文和人口普查记录。本文探讨了三个关键领域。首先，概述了哈代的生平和职业生涯，将他的作品置于男孩故事论文的广泛发展中，以及合并出版社在 19 世纪末和 20 世纪初取得的成功。其次，它探讨了哈代如何成功地开创了当代职业足球世界的故事写作。最后，它探讨了男性和英雄行为的既定惯例如何在足球故事中得到调整和探索。有人认为，哈代在以现代形式发展和普及虚构的足球故事方面发挥了重要作用。