Guif

The Stiga Sports Arena holds 3,700 people, a number that has suited Guif's handball section since September 2017, when the club left Sporthallen after decades there for the newer venue.

Guif itself dates to 26 May 1896, formed in Eskilstuna as the Good Templars' Youth and Sports Club, a name and origin that had nothing to do with handball at first. The sport only became a section of the club in 1932, more than three decades after the founding.

The men's team has reached the Swedish Championship final four times — 1997, 2001, 2009 and 2011 — and lost all four. The women's side has the opposite, thinner but complete: a single Swedish title, taken in 1956, is the only championship the club has ever put on either roll of honour.

What the club has produced more reliably is goalkeepers and wingers who went on to win with Sweden. Tomas Svensson played in Eskilstuna from 1983 to 1990 before collecting World and European titles between the posts for the national side. Kristján Andrésson followed a similar path outward, playing centre back for Guif from 1999 to 2005 and later returning to handball at international level as coach of the Swedish national team.

Matches against VästeråsIrsta HF carry the weight of geography as much as anything on the scoresheet — Södermanland against Västmanland, a fixture the two counties have turned into their own derby.