Halle-Neustadt Women

The SWH.arena holds no more than 1,200 people, a small bowl by Bundesliga standards, and yet it is the ground SV Union Halle-Neustadt has made its own since the venue was still known as the Erdgas Sportarena. The club that plays there today traces back through a chain of East German sides: SV Deutsche Volkspolizei Halle, then SG Dynamo Halle, then SG Dynamo Halle-Neustadt, before the current union formed in 1970. Under those earlier names the men's team took the FDGB-Pokal in 1974 and the GDR indoor title twice in the early 1950s; the women's side of that era never reached a national final itself, though a reserve team, BSG Halloren Halle II, lifted the FDGB-Pokal three times through the 1970s.

The Wildcats, as the women's team is known, spent the 2024/25 season rebuilding a case for the top flight, and did it with force: 25 wins from 26 matches took them to the 2. Bundesliga title and promotion. The 1. Bundesliga Frauen punished that inexperience straight away — a 13th-place finish sent them back into the relegation play-offs against Füchse Berlin in June 2026. Halle-Neustadt won the tie 62:52 on aggregate and kept their place among the elite.

Matches against BSV Sachsen Zwickau carry the weight of the Mitteldeutsches Derby, the fixture that matters most to supporters in this stretch of Saxony-Anhalt beyond the club's black-and-red colours.

Ines Seidler took over as coach through the promotion and the play-off escape, steering a squad built around imports such as Croatian goalkeeper Anica Gudelj and her sister Marija on the wing, Danish centre back Cecilie Woller, and Jenny Illge, who arrived from HC Leipzig to give the side a German core.