Leher

Bremerhaven splits into two football halves, Leher TS against SFL Bremerhaven — the Bremerhaven Derby.

Leher TS carries its origins in its old names. It started in 1898 as Arbeiter-Turnverein Frei Heil Lehe, a workers' gymnastics club, and by 1913 the football side had broken off into its own body, FSV Lehe, tied to the workers' sports association ATSB. That link cost the club its name in 1933: to survive the Nazi ban on workers' sports organisations, it re-formed as Leher Turnerschaft. War took it again — from 1943 to 1945 it merged with Bremerhaven 93 into a wartime composite, KSG Bremerhaven — and peacetime brought a further detour through Sportgemeinschaft Lehe-Süd before the club reclaimed the Leher Turnerschaft name it still carries.

The one cup run worth telling came in 2017. Leher TS won the Bremen Cup, beating Bremer SV on penalties in the final, and the trophy carried a place in the DFB-Pokal. The draw sent them to Köln, and the tie ended 0–5.

Domestically the club has spent recent years riding the lift between the fifth and sixth tiers, dropping out of the Bremen-Liga in 2014/15 and again in 2017/18. It went back down again before winning the Landesliga Bremen in 2024/25 and returning to the Bremen-Liga, where it played the following season. Home games are played at the LTS Stadion im Park, in blue and white, in front of a ground that holds 2,000.

None of that carries the weight of the derby.