Creator of Sherlock Holmes had secret life as a football player for Portsmouth AFC where he made 76 appearances during the 1880s

It is an act of subterfuge which could have leapt from the pages of his own novels.

Assuming a false name, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – creator of Sherlock Holmes – had a secret life as a football player.

In new BBC documentary Killing Sherlock, historian Lucy Worsley will highlight how the author used the name AC Smith to play for Portsmouth AFC during the 1880s – and was in fact one of the founding members of the club.

Sir Arthur, then working as a doctor, had yet to fulfil his dream of becoming a successful writer.

In the new three-part series Worsley says she believes Sir Arthur created the alternative persona because football was not considered a suitable activity for a respectable middle class professional.

She says: 'Arthur the footballer is rather mysterious. Why was it when he played football he disguised his real name? He was 26 years old, 6ft 1in, 15 stone, just the sort of man to stop a ball.'

She adds: 'Football didn't have the same upmarket image as some of Arthur's other hobbies. Football was the sport of the working man and maybe he used his false name to preserve his reputation as a newly established family doctor.'

In newspaper reports from the time, uncovered by The Mail on Sunday, Sir Arthur – under his assumed name of AC Smith – is often singled out in match reports, playing in most games as either goalkeeper or a 'back' player, and seems to have established a reputation for 'heavy kicking'. On November 1, 1886, a report about a game against Petersfield noted: 'AC Smith, besides keeping goal satisfactorily, was invaluable by his great powers of heavy kicking.'

In the same month, the Portsmouth Evening News also highlighted the 'serviceable heavy kicking' of AC Smith in a match against a team known as The Grammar School.

It is believed that he played 76 times for the club. On 29 of these occasions he was in goal, where he conceded 30 goals, helping the team to win 18 games and draw four.

Last night, Andrew Lycett, Sir Arthur's biographer, said that the author had a key role to play in the development of football in the Portsmouth area. He said: 'He was one of the founding members of Portsmouth AFC. Its strip was dark blue tops and stockings, with white 'knickerbockers'.'

He added: 'Although there is no link between Portsmouth AFC and today's Portsmouth FC, he did play an important role in the development of the game in this south coastal town.'

Sir Arthur continued to play even after publishing his first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study In Scarlet, in 1887.

But by the early 1890s, when the Sherlock Holmes stories had become a hit, Sir Arthur had abandoned his secret life on the pitch.