Meppen

The short trip to Spelle-Venhaus, 20 kilometres down the Ems, is a fixture on the calendar for both sides. Two clubs from the same rural district, competing for the same players out of the same villages, have made the Emsland derby a notable match.

The women's side at SV Meppen exists because of a merger. On 1 July 2011 the women's section of SV Victoria Gersten, a club formed in 1947, joined SV Meppen, and the combined team took the green and white.

Before that came the run that put the club on national television. In 2020 Meppen reached the final of the DFB-Pokal der Frauen and lost 4–2 to SGS Essen.

The Hänsch-Arena holds 13,241, a figure built for the men's team and rarely tested by the women's fixtures, though the derby draws better than most. Karin Bacheis, appointed in July 2022, has managed the team since the promotion season ended, working with a squad the club classifies as promateur rather than full-time professional.

Players pass through. Nina Rolfes won the second division twice with the club; Marie Bleil left for 1. FC Nürnberg. Selma Ličina, the Montenegrin, wears the armband now.

Spelle-Venhaus sits 20 minutes away by car, and the two have spent years in and around the same divisions. Neither club draws from a large population — Meppen has fewer than 36,000 residents — which is precisely why the fixture carries what it does: the players on both sides tend to have known each other since they were children.