These sporting lives: David Storey, Barry Hines, and the case of the author-athlete

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of the ‘author-athlete’ as a mechanism for examining the sporting narratives produced by authors who have experienced high level sport. This concept is examined through the careers of David Storey and Barry Hines, two authors from Yorkshire who were prominent in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and who turned to writing after careers in Rugby League and football respectively. The article draws on archival material alongside analyses of both writers’ sporting narratives to identify common features and to reflect on the particular qualities of sporting narratives produced by ex-athletes. In the case of Hines and Storey, it is argued that the concept of the author-athlete enables an understanding to emerge of the ways in which essentialist narratives of Northern sporting heroism and masculinity can be challenged.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Forrest, D.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2024 The Authors. Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a journal article published in Sport in Society is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Keywords:	This Sporting Life; Kes; author-athletes; the North of England; sport and class; sport and art
Dates:	Submitted: 29 August 2023 Accepted: 7 December 2024 Published (online): 9 January 2025 Published: 9 January 2025
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Vice-Chancellor's Office (Sheffield)
Date Deposited:	19 Dec 2024 08:50
Last Modified:	18 Feb 2026 16:33
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1080/17430437.2025.2450799
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:220659

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These sporting lives: David Storey, Barry Hines, and the case of the author-athlete

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