Dresden

Eric Grosche wore the captain's armband when Volleyball Club Dresden climbed into the 1. Bundesliga in 2012, the high point for a club founded in 1996 out of a social project rather than any old sporting lineage. The team reached the play-off quarter-finals that same season, only for the operating company behind it to file for insolvency in December 2014, costing Dresden its top-flight licence.

The rebuild started from the second team: the reserve side won the 3. Liga Ost in 2015/16 and carried the club back into the 2. Bundesliga South, a division VC Dresden has gone up from five times since, most recently in 2020/21, when other clubs' failed licence applications handed them the place at the green table.

The academy behind that recovery has sent players further than the first team itself has gone: Sebastian Rösler made his debut at fifteen before moving on to TSV Unterhaching, and Simon Hirsch progressed through Dresden into the German national team. None of it has produced a national title — that belongs to the unrelated Dresdner SC, whose green and white have nothing to do with the black and yellow worn at the Volleydome Bürgerwiese, a 560-seat hall that has been home since 2014.

Saxony's derby is played against L.E. Volleys of Leipzig, the one fixture on the calendar that needs no promotion push to matter.