SGS Essen Women

Stadion an der Hafenstraße holds 20,650 and stands where the old Stadion Essen stood until the renaming in 2022.

That was the odd position SGS Essen occupied until this year: the last all-women's club in the Frauen-Bundesliga. The Essen team came from a merger in 2000, VfB Borbeck joining SC Grün-Weiß Schönebeck, and it went up to the Bundesliga four years later.

What the club is known for is not its finishes but its academy. Lena Oberdorf came through it. So did Lea Schüller, Linda Dallmann, Marina Hegering and Sara Doorsoun. Fourth in 2018–19 was the high-water mark. Twice, in 2014 and 2020, they reached the DFB-Pokal Frauen final and lost both, to 1. FFC Frankfurt and then to VfL Wolfsburg by a single goal.

Markus Högner coached through most of that, in two spells running from 2010 to 2016 and 2019 to 2025. The 2025–26 season went badly from early on and the wheels came off entirely: eleventh, last, relegation confirmed by a 3–0 defeat at 1. FC Nürnberg on 8 May 2026. The Revierderby with MSV Duisburg goes down a division with them.

The women's football in Essen-Schönebeck predates all of it.