In the loading dock of a former newspaper printing factory in east London, Naomi Fitzgibbons and Kate Hetherington brew kegs and mix cocktails.
This weekend, the co-founders of Set Piece Social (SPS) — an event dedicated to broadcasting women’s sports and aiming to become the UK’s first women’s sports bar — are hosting their second pop-up at Hatch in Hackney.
The couple have been up since dawn, carrying kegs of beer up the spiral staircase to a mezzanine. With the help of a team of volunteers, they transformed the rented space into a women’s inclusive sports bar. Over the next two days they will be screening women’s football and rugby matches and welcoming fans of women’s sport from London and beyond.
In December last year, at their first pop-up event, Fitzgibbons, originally from Liverpool, admits to being nervous before the match. Hetherington, who is Australian, wondered if people would actually show up. That concern was put to rest when a community came out in force to show their full support for the couple’s vision. The success of their test event hasI sent them here, to a coupleExtravaganza of the day that was timed to perfection.
It’s Women’s Football Weekend, an annual event that puts women’s football in the spotlight during the men’s international break. It is also the start of the Women’s Six Nations Tournament, an international rugby competition played between England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France and Italy.
At the door welcoming fans starting at noon sharp is Betsy Dillner.
The 39-year-old wears the same black and pink SPS T-shirts as the volunteer staff. Dillner has lived in London for a decade and wanted to help her two friends found the first women’s sports bar in England.
“I’m really excited that they can launch this project. As a friend and a fan, I’m going to try to help them as much as I can,” Dillner says, stopping to point a fan named Molly “to the second table in the back.” The first match of the day, a Women’s Super League match between Manchester City and Manchester United, has already started a few minutes ago.
What would it mean for SPS to open a permanent place?
“Not only (would it be good) for womenmen’s sports, but as a queer person myself, queer spaces are closing down left and right,” she says. “The Glory (an LGBTQ+ pub and performance venue in east London), which was a valuable space for the queer community, even closed its doors in December. Sports is an incredible way to bring people together and create intergenerational community spaces that are gender and queer inclusive – that’s what we need right now.
The first women’s sports bar in the United States opened in April 2022. In its first eight months, Portland, Oregon-based The Sports Bra had revenue of just less than a million dollars.
Jenny Nguyen founded “The Bra” after being unable to find a place to watch women’s sports – a recurring problem for many fans and one that SPS is trying to solve on this side of the Atlantic.
“I feel like the best ideas are the ones that when they come to fruition, people wonder, ‘How did we live without that?’ “, Nguyen, who has offered advice to SPS and other start-ups, says Athleticism.
“The first three months… you know, I think I passed out. I feel like maybe the first two weeks I worked 20 hours a day. There were a few nights where it was 4 a.m. and I knew I had to be there around 7:30, and I was like, “Am I sleeping here?”
Nguyen says she took a nap at the bar on occasion during those busy opening months. She credits a strong, dedicated team and credits The Sports Bra’s success to them and a community of women’s sports fans who keep coming — and not always in person.
In January, a winter storm forced Portland to shut down. Nguyen says there are bars and restaurants she knows personally that never reopened after being closed for a week. The sports bra managed to survive the snow and ice thanks to the money Nguyen had saved, but it couldn’t cover its employees, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck. to the other,” which she says is not uncommon in the restaurant industry. having worked as a chef for 15 years.
This led front desk manager Drew Varcoe to start a GoFundMe page. What happened next was that a community of women’s sports enthusiasts came forward and raised over $15,000 to protect a unique space that many of them had not yet visited.
“In less than 24 hours, we were able to help our 16 employees,” says Nguyen. “And there is some guilt with that because I know there are businesses that have closed their doors. They created GoFundMe pages and were unable to raise money. So I will never take for granted that we have such a huge platform and community behind us.
The Sports Bra is on the map and staying there. The bar was a clue in the long-running American game show Jeopardy! and it was a recent clue in the New York Times daily crossword — two signs of how Nguyen and his team find themselves at the forefront of a cultural movement, one of which an SPS is eager to be a part of.
Dillner herself is a Portland native and enjoyed visiting The Sports Bra on her trips home. Like many, she believes London is crying out for a similar fan base for women’s sports. gather. SPS is trying to make this a reality and being booked for the rest of the weekend bodes well.
“The biggest problem we had was having to turn away customers when they wanted to reserve a table when we didn’t have enough room,” Fitzgibbons says.
“It’s a good problem to have,” Hetherington adds. “Permanent housing is the ultimate goal. I guess the first dream would be to broadcast it across the UK (as a pop-up event) and also globally. The reality is we need a lot of capital investment.
Fitzgibbons says they will crowdfund, but even then, with costs rising, it might not be enough to secure the size of space they’ll need.
“We use these pop-ups as a springboard to generate interest and that’s a testament to their popularity,” she says. “You know how the whole weekend was sold out and people will come? We will use it in our pitches.
For now, their dream is supported by fans, friends and family.
“We’re all northerners behind the bar,” Claire Saunders-Proudlove shouts over the commentary. The 35-year-old from Salford is a Manchester United fan and serves pints alongside his wife of six years, Frankie.
“I saw the rotation and I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I won’t have the chance to watch the derby? but… it’s probably for the best,” she laughs, glancing at the projector screen as Manchester City lead 2-0 as half-time approaches.
“I have known Naomi and Kate for over 10 years. We have a WhatsApp chat to talk about football, but we couldn’t go anywhere to watch it together.
It was during the Lionesses’ run to the European Championship title in 2022 that Fitzgibbons and Hetherington were struck by the energy across the country that summer.
“We want to create a space for them (the fans),” says Fitzgibbons. “The following WSL season (after the Euros), we were searching on Google: ‘Where can you watch women’s sport?’ Where can we watch the WSL?’.
Fitzgibbons explains how they were showing up at a pub that had promised to show a particular match only to have it not happen, with men’s sports taking priority.
“As a woman who enjoys watching football and men’s football as well, I feel like there are fewer opportunities to go and enjoy it alone in social spaces,” says the writer and co- host of the Standard Issue podcast, Jen Offord.
“I often want to go to the pub to watch a Champions League match alone, but I find it a strange thing to do as a single woman. And then when we think of women’s football in particular; there just aren’t those opportunities to watch it in a social setting. That’s why I think it’s a very good thing to do. There is a market for it and people are interested.
Tolu Ogunsakin has her eyes set on Saturday’s Six Nations match, but she arrived early and recognizes the need to support all women’s sports, even though, by her own admission, she hates football.
“As a black woman in general, I’m used to being in spaces where I’m the only minority, and so going into rugby teams, I’m used to only being the one of two black women and that’s pretty much a norm in any rugby team. I found out about it,” says the 28-year-old from Lewisham.
What’s it like being at SPS and watching rugby?
“I’m at home,” she said cheerfully before celebrating another try scored by France in their 38-17 victory over Ireland.
As the Saunders-Proudloves continue to serve drinks, fresh pizzas flow from Dough Hands in the corner and Contested, a social media startup that partnered with SPS for the event, is giving away a T-shirt to every person who downloads their app.
Gail and Sophie Weir are a married couple who live in Woodford Green and they are standing in the corner of the bar after buying a few T-shirts.
“It feels really safe and tolerant here,” Gail says. “I think it’s really important (what SPS is trying to do) and I think it’s really hard to find. Sophie was really lucky that it managed to appear (on Instagram), because how can you find places like this? »
Fitzgibbons and Hetherington attempt to provide a permanent answer.
(Top photos: Kate Hetherington and Naomi Fitzgibbons, left, and Gail and Sophie Weir, right; Caoimhe O’Neill/The Athletic)