Arthur Appleton was born in Sunderland and was working at fourteen first as a chemist shop errand boy and then as an office boy. He began writing in his teens and left his job as a clerk to move to London. His first publication was a poem in the Observer in 1939.

After service in the Royal Engineers in the Middle East, he became a scriptwriter and then programme planner with the Forces Broadcasting Service in Haifu and Jerusalem, and this led to nearly thirty years of work with the BBC in Newcastle, Manchester and Bristol as a reporter and radio producer. He has had a number of radio documentaries broadcast as well as three for television. He had covered football regularly since 1948 mainly for the BBC but also for the press and for the last few years of the Sunday Times. He has written five books on the game, including Hotbed of Soccer published in 1960 by Rupert Hart-Davis. In 1973 Michael Joseph published his Mary Ann Cotton: Her Story and Trial the first full account of the infamous North East poisoner. An adaptation of the book appeared on television.