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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Suzanne Wrack in Brighton

‘The perfect place for people like me’: how one couple started UK’s first women’s sports bar

Pippa and Lucy Tallant, founders of Crossbar, on their opening night
Pippa (left) and Lucy Tallant, founders of Crossbar, on the opening night. Photograph: Peter Flude/The Guardian

You can’t miss it, the giant “Crossbar” flanked by two stylised crosses in black on the whitewashed outside walls glares down the street, a stone’s throw from Brighton’s Churchill Square. Outside is the narrow shelf that the co-owner Lucy Tallant, the DIY enthusiast of the pair, attached to the wall for those wanting to hang around outside. As she worked on that shelf, two girls walked past and one proclaimed: “Yeah, they’re opening a lesbian club.” “A lesbian club?” replied the other, “Yeah, there’s one outside now.”

Lucy was in stitches, and so was social media when she posted about what she had overheard. The shelf has become a thing, with lesbians posing for photographs and then sharing online with versions of “there’s one outside now” as the caption.

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