Gyeongju

Every finals series in Gyeongju seems to end the same way, with Incheon Hyundai Steel Red Angels on the other side of the trophy lift. The two sides met for the WK League Cup in 2017 and Incheon took it 1-0, then kept meeting in the championship playoffs through 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022, Gyeongju finishing runner-up each time. Korean press has taken to calling it a 숙적 rivalry, a word that carries more grudge than "rival" does in English, though no one has bothered giving the fixture a proper derby name.

The club itself grew out of a state utility company's decision, made in October 2016 and formalised the following March, to field a women's team under the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power banner. It plays out of the third pitch at Gyeongju Football Park, a ground that holds 650 people, and wears green with no nickname attached — supporters and reporters alike just call it KHNP.

Silverware has mostly slipped past them at the final hurdle. Second in the regular season table in both 2018 and 2019, second again in four separate championship playoffs, the club's one outright win came in the 2022 National Women's Football Championship. The nearest thing to a signature name is Lee Geum-min, who wore the shirt for a single season in 2018 before her move through Manchester City and Brighton to Birmingham City and on to the South Korea captaincy. Park Ye-eun came up through the club across five years, from 2017 to 2022, before she too left for Britain, to Brighton and then Scottish Hearts.

Incheon remains the fixture Gyeongju cannot get past, but the picture has shifted lately. Suwon FC Women sharpened into a genuine threat once Ji So-yun joined in 2022, and Hwacheon KSPO, regular-season champions in 2024, has become another team Gyeongju keeps running into when the table goes out of the window in the playoffs.