Poruba Women

The Zlín derby carries more weight in the dressing room at Poruba than any league table position, and matches against HC Zlín still get marked on the calendar before the rest of the fixture list is out. There is a second, older kind of rivalry too, against fellow Sokol clubs such as Sokol Písek — a leftover from the network of Sokol sports organisations the club still carries in its name.

That name has not always meant the same club. The handball section in Poruba traces back to 1973 inside TJ Sokol Poruba, but the team that actually won titles in the late 1990s played as BK Ostrava, taking the Czech championship in both 1997 and 1998 and reaching the EHF Champions League on the back of it. That version of the club folded in 2010. It was rebuilt the following season under the current name, DHC Sokol Poruba, and picked up where the old side had left off: the Extraliga title returned in 2011/2012, with Slovak forward Alžbeta Tóthová top scorer that year, and the Interliga followed in 2012/2013.

The years either side of that Interliga win were close but short of the summit — runner-up in 2012/2013 and again in 2014/2015, third place in 2013/2014 and 2015/2016. Europe has stayed just out of reach beyond the group stages: a second qualifying round exit in the Women's EHF Cup in 2012/2013, and a run to the semi-finals of the Women's EHF Challenge Cup in 2016/2017 that ended against H65 Höör.

Home games are played in front of black and yellow at the Sportovní hala SAREZA, a ground that holds barely a thousand people. Since that Interliga season, the one trophy that has eluded the club is the Extraliga itself.