Skip to main content
The Morning Star 2026 Conference
The media and football: a match of mutual benefit
Kadeem Simmonds reviews From the Back Page to the Front Room by Roger Domeneghetti (Ockley Books, £9.99)

The media needs football just as much as football needs the media — that’s the main theme of Roger Domeneghetti’s book.

From the Back Page to the Front Room brilliantly details the relationship between the beautiful game and the press, something which is often taken for granted.

The moment a game ends reports are uploaded online, with millions reading about a match they’ve just finished watching. But there was a time when Britain’s media didn’t care about the sport and it only received a few lines in newspapers, something which would be unthinkable today.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
The front pages of national newspapers on display in London showing Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, October 31, 2025
Journalism / 24 January 2026
24 January 2026

Claims that digital media has rendered press power obsolete are a dangerous myth, argues DES FREEDMAN

[Pic: Andrew Wiard]
History / 24 January 2026
24 January 2026

The once beating heart of British journalism was undone by technological change, union battles and Murdoch’s 1986 Wapping coup – leaving London the only major capital without a press club, says TIM GOPSILL

SOGAT general secretary Brenda Dean (third from left) points to a poster condemning the owner of News International Mr Rupert Murdoch for his action against the print unions, February 11, 1986
Working Class History / 24 January 2026
24 January 2026

Enduring myths blame print unions for their own destruction – but TONY BURKE argues that the Wapping dispute was a calculated assault by Murdoch on organised labour, which reshaped Britain’s media landscape and casts a long shadow over trade union rights today

Morning Star and Xinhua Daily meeting
History / 27 September 2025
27 September 2025

A chance find when clearing out our old office led us to renew a friendship across 5,000 miles and almost nine decades of history, explains ROGER McKENZIE