Goppingen Women

Women's handball at Frisch Auf Göppingen grew out of a gymnastics club founded in Göppingen in 1896; the men had already taken up handball in 1920 when the women's department followed in 1923.

The team's path through German handball has run in cycles rather than a steady climb: promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time in 2006, relegated a year later, back up in 2008, down again in 2021, and returned as champions of the 2. Bundesliga in 2024. Twice the club has reached the last four of the DHB-Pokal — in 2006/07, losing the semi-final to Buxtehuder SV by a single goal, 28:29, and again in 2012/13, going out to Thüringer HC 22:28.

The club has also sent players into a wide spread of national teams — Joyce Hilster for the Netherlands, Lisa Frey for Switzerland, Birute Stellbrink for Lithuania among them.

Matches are played at the EWS Arena, and the fixtures that matter most locally come against Baden-Württemberg neighbours: TVB Stuttgart in the Württemberg derby, Rhein-Neckar Löwen across the wider regional divide, and HBW Balingen-Weilstetten.

What the women's team has not done, in over a century since that 1923 founding, is win either the German championship or the DHB-Pokal itself — the two semi-final defeats remain as close as it has come.