Makar Artemev
It’s so cold, you’d see your own breath if you yelled, “Eisern Union!” loud enough. But the weather far from discourages the red-and-white-striped stalwarts who stand like lighthouses in the fog. On the schedule is Union Berlin vs Carl Zeiss Jena, and Union’s hard-as-iron fans line up in sector three, promptly two hours before kick-off. Their support is a choreographed ritual, with chants, drumbeats and keys pulled out of pockets to be jangled during corner kicks. When the Union anthem sung by Nina Hagen in November 1998 plays, the club members sing along with booming pride. Several thousand voices ring out around the stadium.
Women’s football is on the rise everywhere, and it’s no different in Berlin-Köpenick.
Makar Artemev
Last spring, the team advanced to the top Bundesliga of DFB-Pokal Frauen, the women’s football league in Germany. This means that, for the first time in 15 years, a Berlin women’s team is represented in the upper league. The expansion of the squad was unprecedented. Even in the regional league, the club decided to go fully professional. Since then, not only have the training conditions been adapted, but coach Ailien Poese and the signed players now receive a salary that allows them to concentrate on football. The team includes stars like captain Lisa Heiseler and foreign national players like Swiss goalkeeper Nadine Böhi.
Union women’s matches attracted record crowds in 2025. An average of 7,500 spectators now flock to the Alte Försterei stadium every week. Season ticket sales have also risen significantly. For fans old and new, it shows a noticeable shift from the male-dominated, old-school image of German football to a new, intrinsically progressive movement.
But whether such divisions will enrich or enrage one another remains to be seen.
Women’s football is on the rise everywhere, and it’s no different in Berlin-Köpenick.
During the match against Jena, the standing block contains all age groups, from small schoolchildren to their grandparents. Among them are the tried-and-true, red-and-white shirts, those faded by time and worn beneath patchwork embroidered waistcoats and scarves. Then there are the satin trousers, Salomon trainers and beanies of those who make up an entirely new target group: younger people, women especially, drinking punch instead of beer, some sporting a queer insignia in one of sport’s most heteronormative spaces.
The cup match against Carl-Zeiss-Jena ends in a narrow 0-1 defeat, and the Union women are eliminated. For now.
Makar Artemev
Fußballgöttin!
Yvonne, co-chair of Union’s fan club, is draped in red and white. From her cap to her rain poncho, she dons the team’s iconic stripes like a candy cane. She explains, “Originally, we were a fan club for men,” but it doesn’t matter anymore which gender is on the pitch. Their loyalty simply belongs to Union.
Strikingly enough, Sector 2, where the fanatical supporters, or ultras, normally stand during Union men’s matches, is closed; these important cheerleaders stay away from the women’s games. Nineteen-year-old Laura is disappointed. “There should be much more going on here. Look at how empty it is.” She designs graphics for ‘Frauenpower Rot-Weiss’, the first dedicated women’s fan club. Among the members is retired Billi, who has never missed a game.
Within the fan community, some view the expansion of the women’s division with scepticism, as a glance at the portal unionforum.de shows. “Every Union B-youth game is 10 times more challenging in terms of play, so what’s all the fuss about this bought-and-paid-for team?” comments one user. Of course, this kind of rejection follows patriarchal patterns; it’s likely based on a fear of change and loss of power.
Those who are there are, first and foremost, Union fans, regardless of the gender playing on the pitch.
At a DFB Cup match for Union’s men’s team against Arminia Bielefeld, the acoustics are breathtaking. The stadium is sold out. The ultras’ choreography is nothing short of impressive; posters held above heads light up Sector 2 in yellow, orange and red, and a huge fabric cup rises up between the spectators, held by a face-painted Snake Müller, who comments on the banner stretched across the entire Union side. “Cup alert at Müggelsee!” he cries, referencing the 2013 cult-comedy Hai-Alarm am Müggelsee.
If the crowd disagrees with the referee, there’s a deafening whistle. The mood is much more heated than at the women’s game. Newcomers to Sector 2 are greeted with the infamously rough Berliner Schnauze. In the neighbouring, traditionally more composed Sector 3, emotions also run high. A scuffle between Union fans threatens to escalate into a group brawl.
The Union men win 2-1 after a tenacious extra time.
Makar Artemev
Eisern für Menschlichkeit!
Christian Arbeit, the stadium announcer responsible for communications at FC Union, explains that ultra culture is overly masculinised and, for many, specifically linked to the men’s team. He offers an explanation for the absence of this milieu at the DFB-Pokal Frauen matches: often the men’s away games overlap with the women’s home games. “It’s simply a time issue.” He views the stadium experience in a broader social context: “Though it may seem a little archaic, at the same time, it fulfils a function. In our highly regulated lives, it’s an important space of freedom.”
For many, women’s football is a counter-model to this narrative. The differing approach to queerness is particularly striking. It plays a much greater role at women’s matches, whether among fans or among players. The LGBTQ+ scene remains subdued in the stands of Köpenick. Yet it certainly feels safer for queer people in women’s football than in the men’s segment.
Makar Artemev
Still, the Union community continues to grapple with some fans’ discomfort at the presence of queer politics in football. Some supporters were annoyed by the presence of a Union rainbow scarf on a poster advertising the club. This clash of realities creates friction, yet some actually find it desirable: “It has a positive effect on the club,” says Arbeit. “We see the stadium as a space where people come together who would not otherwise meet.”
However, there is growing criticism that FC Union must distance itself more explicitly from right-wing populist movements. Now and then, incidents in the men’s section betray a darker side of the fan zone. Recently, on the return journey from an away game in Bremen, individual fans hurled racist insults at the bus driver and played ‘L’amour toujours’, the song to whose melody young, misguided tourists shamefully chanted “Foreigners out!” in Sylt in 2024.
On the other side of the spectrum, the promotion of women’s football is criticised for descending into pink-washing. Arbeit responds, “We don’t engage in women’s football for ideological reasons, but because we are a football club that wants to offer football at the highest level – for both men and women.”
Makar Artemev
So what is the situation like in other socio-cultural environments of local fan culture – for example, over a drink? Well, unlike with the men’s games, it’s not yet normal for women’s away games to be shown in pubs. However, fans were in luck one Friday in November. On the initiative of the Grenzenlos Eisern fan club, the bar Panenka in Friedrichshain showed the Union women’s away game against FC Bayern Munich.
One Union fan has printed 4.5 kilos of stickers of his own design and wants to use them to cover up stickers of the rival Berlin club: FC Hertha.
Its interior exudes nostalgia. Alongside framed posters of punk bands such as Peter and the Test Tube Babies and The Adicts, Union scarves and other memorabilia adorn the walls. Around 30 people have turned up, filling the side room to its last seat, including some American fans. Joey, who lives in Washington, D.C., appreciates the grassroots and welcoming culture at Union, claiming that the games feel less commercial than US soccer.
The match itself is frustrating, with the coach missing many players due to injuries.
At one table, fans proudly present sticker collections and self-printed items, each featuring Union motifs. Among them are slogans such as ‘Eisern Kansas City’ or ‘Conni doesn’t go to football, she goes to Union’, referring to the beloved German children’s comic. They’re passed around over beer glasses. One Union fan has printed 4.5 kilos of stickers of his own design and wants to use them to cover up stickers of the rival Berlin club: FC Hertha.
Those who are there are, first and foremost, Union fans, regardless of the gender playing on the pitch. The fact that the Union’s women’s team lost 0-4 to Bayern Munich doesn’t diminish this love.
Makar Artemev
Na und?!
The Union women are (currently) in ninth place in the league table. They had a bumpy start, partly due to injuries. In the second half of the season, their aim is to stay in the league. But beyond goals and points, the question remains what the future holds for fan culture.
The FBL league association was set to professionalise German women’s football and make it more appealing to fans and commercial audiences alike. The fact that, contrary to original plans, the new association is organised independently of the men’s DFB can be seen as a rupture. At the same time, it offers a chance for this sport to play a more mainstream role in the coming years. That means in Köpenick, too.
For all their differences, one thing remains the same at men’s and women’s Union games – a cherished ritual that straddles both worlds and dominates the scene of the stadium during every corner kick: the rattling of keys while shouting “Hinein, Hinein!” (“In, in!”). If nothing else, it is an act of manifestation; just as a key slots into a lock, so the ball goes into the goal – and at the end of the day, isn’t that what football’s all about?
