Stramash: Tackling Scotland's Towns and Teams

Review 1: ‘There have been previous attempts by authors to explore the off-the-beaten paths of the Scottish football landscape, but Daniel Gray’s volume is in another league as he mixes social history with sharp contemporary observation (and measured wit) in the classic outposts of the game which, together, epitomise the character of football north of the border.’

Source: The Scotsman, a Sports Book of the Year

Review 2: ‘Truly splendid’ — Arthur Montford

‘An excellent book about the country s smaller teams… [Stramash] captures the vague romance that still clings to these smaller Scottish clubs. It will make a must-read for every non-Old Firm football fan and for many Rangers and Celtic supporters too’

Source: Daily Record

Review 3: ‘As he takes in a match at each stopping-off point, Gray presents little portraits of small Scottish towns, relating histories of declining industry, radical politics and the connection between a team and its community. It s a brilliant way to rediscover Scotland’ — The Herald

‘A great read, because Gray doesn’t write about just football, he uses football as an excuse to explore the histories of small towns in Scotland’ — The Skinny

‘Why do the Gers and Hoops have retail outlets in the capital? Why do buses depart for Glasgow on a Saturday morning from every corner of Scotland? Gray’s book is a splendid attempt to answer these questions, and more besides… The result is sociology at its best, which is to say eminently readable… Stramash may turn out to be a memoir of the way we were, and an epitaph’ — Sunday Herald

‘I defy anyone to read Stramash and not fall in love with Scottish football’s blessed eccentricities all over again… Funny enough to bring on involuntary laugh out loud moments’

Source: The Scottish Football Blog

Daniel Gray is the author of Homage to Caledonia: Scotland and the Spanish Civil War. He has also written on football for When Saturday Comes and Fly Me To The Moon, the fanzine of his beloved Middlesbrough FC, and is a book reviewer for History Scotland and The Skinny, and also writes for the magazines The Leither and Scottish Labour Review. He is a 2003 Politics and History graduate of Newcastle University. His first book, the Historical Dictionary of Marxism, was published in 2005. He has yet to sell the film rights. Gray has worked as a researcher, contributor and writer on BBC radio and on STV’s miniseries The Scots Who Fought Franco. He lives in Leith with his wife Marisa.