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Alas, poor Hamlet. They failed to score with me
The Observer
|August 24, 2025
In her search for a sport to love, Marie Le Conte looks to the seventh tier of English football
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Obviously I have watched football before. I don't live in a cave. I am, however, the epitome of the part-time supporter: I awake from my slumber when the World Cup or the Euros begin, then return to my primordial sleep when the tournaments end. Once, briefly, I tried to get into the Premier League, but my enthusiasm ran out after three weeks.
If big football captured my heart but medium-sized football failed to keep me interested, could little football be the one for me? That's what I asked myself as I bought a ticket for an Isthmian League Premier Division game, representing England's seventh tier of football.
Dulwich Hamlet is, I'd been warned, quite heavy on the hipsters. Indeed, it is true that on the way from the station I found myself walking through what felt like a convention for men I snogged while living in east London in the early 2010s.
This story is from the August 24, 2025 edition of The Observer.
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