Soproni Vasutas Sportegylet (SVSE) club was founded in 1921, but during the early years the basketball was not well known in our country. However, it was rapidly gaining popularity in Europe, clubs were being formed in many countries, with SVSE joining the trend after the end of World War II, first establishing a men's and soon after a women's basketball section.
Unfortunately, after a while it became obvious that only the women's club would survive, competing for many years in the Second Division of the national championship, eventually graduating to the First Division B Group in 1986. This came about after the club's management had decided to make available the necessary resources for the big step up in standards. By 1989 we had reached the highest level of the domestic championship, First Division A Group. It marked the start of a long history of success for Sopron's basketball, which continues to this day. There was a couple of sixth places, which were the harbingers of later and greater achievements, the first of which occurred in 1991, when SVSE reached the Hungarian Cup final, only to fall at the last hurdle to a BEAC team which boasted among its members Bubu Balogh.
At this point András Magyar was recruited as the head coach of the club in time, and he proceeded to shape a squad that wrote its name into Hungarian basketball history during the 1992-93 season. Bubu Balogh returned to her homeland from a professional stint in France to join SVSE and led the team to a convincing championship title. In the championship's playoff deciders SVSE overcame MTK 3-0, with Bubu scoring 45 points in the final match which the Sopron girls won 91-87 in front of a sellout crowd at the University Gym. Those who were lucky enough to be there, will never forget the celebrations at Sopron's Main Square later that night.
The following season SVSE's ladies had to set about their task without the services of Bubu, who was preparing for the birth of her first child. The team moved its home games to the larger capacity Sportcentrum and began to enjoy the security provided by the substantial financial support of a major commercial enterprise, GYSEV Rt. However, repeat success didn't come easily and in 1997 GYSEV's president, Dr János Berényi, decided the solution may lie in bringing back to Sopron its European class favourite Judith "Bubu" Balogh. Bubu's return also marked the arrival of her husband and outstanding coach, Saeed Armaghani. Efforts to substantially strengthen the playing staff were crowned with success, marked by the decision to move to Sopron by one of Hungary's best young talents Tímea Béres as well as the Lithuanian-Ukrainian Euro champion duo of Dalia Kurtinaitene and Sveta Orehova. This terrific trio had a major role in the team's Ronchetti Cup win, as well as silver medals in both the Hungarian Championship and Cup. The win in the Ronchetti Cup was the first by a Hungarian club in a decade and a half.
However the ambitions of the club's leadership weren't quite fulfilled by this outstanding season - the aim was to win a national championship gold medal and the steady stream of new signings promised that all the effort would be crowned by success in the foreseeable future. In spite of a series of injuries, the team only suffered one defeat in the regular season, but could only manage a silver medal in the Hungarian Cup and also suffered elimination in the Ronchetti Cup. However, after several years' break, Sopron could once again welcome home - and deservedly so - the National Championship trophy after a 3-1 victory over eternal rivals Pécs.
In 1999/2000 our star, Bubu Balogh, is taking an indefinite break to await the birth of her second child and the "foreign legionnaires" have all gone to new clubs. The replacements were, in the main, of a younger generation. A respectable debut performance in the Euroleague. We reached the best of 8 in the Euroleague. In the Hungarian Championship and in the Hungarian Cup only 2nd place.
In 2000/2001 New faces in the team. Bubu came back and came to our team Alena Kovacova and Zuzana Zirkova from the Euroleague-Winner SCP Ruzomberok and Eva Seres from Ferencvaros too. Again 2nd place in the Hungarian Championship against Pecsi VSK (3-2), and best of 8 in the Euroleague.
The 2001/2002 season was again succesfull. We started the season year with 2 new point-guards. The australian Tully Bevilaqua and the young Szilvia Török. And a new coach, Sándor Farkas. The autumn was fantastic. We won and won and won. In dezember we lost the good rythm. So we couldn't reach the FINAL4 and we got silver at the Hungarian-Cup. But In June we won the Hungarian Championship against PVSK with an easy 3-0.
Our next year wasn't the brightest. Besides, we managed to form such a players' group during the season of transfer which was qualified for the biggest aims. Eva Nemcova, Alessandra, Oxana Zakalyuzhnaya and Gordana Bogojevic also transferred to us. The bad luck started when Eva Nemcová left our team which led to the point that we didn't reach our set aims at each place. But we didn't break down and we started to get better at the end of the season and to build our young team whose foundation is Natalia Hejkova coach, who spent the last months with our team together.
2003/2004. We built a new young team, the team of the future! We transferred two skilled players, Iveta Bielikova and Sanja Vesel. Beside them only young players played in the team, most of them were from our junior team who spent foreign year in our lent team to get skilled. We reached our aims! Our young team developed step by step. We had a lot of memorable victory at the Euroleague as in the Hungarian Championship.
2004/2005. We wanted to make another steps fore. We came back a young player - who spent last year in our lent team - Zsovár Orsolya. But she injured in August. We signed a contract with the 20 years old center, Ivana Matovic, and Lucie Blahuskova! The czech player, Lucie Blahuskova is young too, but already wrote her name to the Book of the European Basketball. She was the MVP of the European-Championship in Greece (2003). We had a lot of problem in this year. We started the season really good. The high point was our win in Brno at the end of november. But something broke after it by the team. We lost important games in the Euroleague, so we had to play against Gdynia in the play-off. We lost both games. We had a lot of injuries after X-mas also. We lost key-players as Gordana Kovacevic and Vajda Anna for a long time and other players had injuries also for weeks. But we fought with 120%, and reached the hungarian final, what was our aim! We played some good games against PVSK in the final, but we couldnt stop them. So we got silver medals.
2005/06. We signed important contracts with very good players. Our 2 key-players, Lucie Blahuskova and Ivana Matovic signed for us 2 more years, until 2007! The biggest sensation happened in the middle of april, when we signed for the next year with Nikki Teasley! The WNBA Champion and All-Star MVP Nikki Teasley was the first player who broke Ticha Penicheiro's first position after six years with her 6.1 average assists in the WNBA! We signed a 1+2 year contract with Cserny Réka, who will come back from the States, where she had very good years at the University of Harvard. We signed the hungarian national team-player Eördögh Edit, who comes back after 3 years to us. We signed with the young hungarian pointguard, Kocsis Boglárka, and with some our young talent also.
We started the season with some uncalculated lost games. Thats why we started from bad position the Euroleague Play-off. But we made a big victory over Ekaterinburg, and reached the best of 8 in winning 2 games. For the FINAL4 we had to play against Valenciennes, but we had no chance, they played better and steped into the FINAL4. In the Hungarian-cup final we had a big chance to win at home against Pécs, but we lost in the last minute. In the Hungarian Championship Final Pécs won 3-0.
2006/07. After 3 years we changed coach and signed with Székely Norbert for 2 years, who was our assistant coach. Nikki Teasley left our team, and so were searching for a new point guard too, and signed with the hungarian national team player Németh Bernadett from Zalaegerszeg. This year was the most successful in our history. In the Euroleague we stepped into the best of 8 again, where we couldn't stop the russian 'mega-team', CSKA Samara. In April, first time in our club-history we won the Hungarian Cup against Szeged! In the Final we played against Pécs, and on the 15th of May we won the championship, after 5 dramatic games, 3-2! We will never forget this enchanting season.
2007/08. We replayed the gold season! In Summer we signed with young talented players: Jelena Milovanovic, Horti Dóra, Semsei Barbara and Iva Sliskovic. In the first half of the season we couldnt play levelly, but after the Christmas we started to be stronger step by step. We reached the play-off in the Euroleague, but there we had no chance against Bourges. In the Hungarian cup we show our best performance in the year! In the Final, in Pécs we won 77-63 against the home team. In the championship we walked easy into the final, where we started the games in Pécs. We won the first game and also the second! We lost the third in Pécs, but on the fourth game in Sopron we have shown our best face and won the game and with this victory the championship too!
2008/2009. Historical Season! Well we signed again with young players: Krivacevic Tijana (hungarian national team player), Kathleen Macleod (Australia) and Amber Holt (USA). At the end of November we lost Kathleen Macleod, our pointguard for a month because she had appendicitis surgery, but we could win without her in Pécs, in Brno and against CSKA Moscow! With these victories we built a strong ground for another nice results. In the Euroleague we had to fight against one of the icons of the European women basketball, Bourges Basket. We were on top form, and we could win in Bourges, and after also at home. So we reached the FINAL4 with the youngest team of the Euroleague! It was the biggest result in our history! In the Hungarian Cup we lost in the final at home against Pécs, but we were preparing at this time for the FINAL4. In Salamanca we finished on the 4th place, what was an unbelievable achievement! We celebrated in Spain together with our fans and sponsors. After the F4 had to wait us an other challange in the hungarian championship. The opponent team in the final was Szeged. We won by 3-1, so we stayed on the top of the national league! This was our 3rd championship title in row! What a great season!
2009/2010. After the historical season we tried to keep the team together. It was almost successful, only Kathleen Macleod left us. We signed with two young players: Maja Miljkovic (Serbia), Varga Zsófia (hungarian national team player). The pre-season started perfect: we got an invitation to the International Tournament to Ekaterinburg, where we had strong games against USA, Ekaterinburg and Prague. It was a big honor! But this was the last golden moment in our season... We started the Euroleague with two important victory, but after we had a lot of injuries. We missed a lot of players from our roster, and we lost many games not only in the Euroleague but also in the Hungarian Championship. In the last round we played against Prague at home, but we couldnt live with our last chance to reach the play-off(93-96). For the rest two months of the season we signed with an american point guard, Kristi Toliver. With her we won the basic season in the Hungarian Championship with a great finish. One week later we lost the Hungarian Cup in Pécs against Mizo with a last second shot of Anna Vajda (70-72). That was a sore defeat, but the Hungarian Championship final ended worse. In the play-off something broke in our team effort, and we lost 3-0 against Pécs, and two games at home court... That was the end of a difficult, wash-out season.
2010/2011. We refreshed our roster with good players, included with a "Big name", Angel McCoughtry, who was one of the best players in the WNBA. Only Diana Taurasi scored more points than Angel. The other newcomers were: Zane Tamane, Kátya Abramzon, Boglárka Kocsis, Diána Fűrész, Tímea Czank and Fanni Szabó. The season started bad, because Boglárka Kocsis had to finish her career bacause of health problems. In the first round of the Euroleague we lost for the rest of the season Tímea Czank too, because of a serious knee injury. But in this situation we started the season with good results in the Euroleague and also in the Hungarian Championship. But at the end of the year one of our main sponsors, MKB Bank stepped back from sponsorship. Our management decided to sell our key-player, Angel to the turkish team, Fenerbahce. We also let to go Kátya, back to Israel. After this transactions we had chance to sign with few accomplished players who earlier played for us: Edit Eördögh, Dóra Horti, Bernadett Németh. Marissa Coleman from the States also signed for us for the rest of the season. So in the middle of the season we had to build a "new team". So it wasnt a surprise, that we had a difficult January, but we started to be better and better. We reached the play-off in the Euroleague, where (best of 16) our opponent was the famous star club, Ros Casares Valencia. We made a miracle in Sopron, when we beat the spanish team. But in Spain we had no chance, so they reached the best of 8. For us remained the "hungarian line".
The Hungarian Cup final was in Körmend, where we played the Final against Pécs. They killed us one week before in the last round of the basic season, but in Körmend we were the better team! Marissa injured in the first quarter, but this didnt break us and we have shown a really great performance, and won the Hungarian Cup! With this nice result we waited the championship play-off. In the final we lost the first 2 games against Pécs, and the third battle was in Pécs. Everybody waited the success of Pécs, but we came back to the final!. We won in Pécs and the 4th game in Sopron too. So the 5th game decided about the chamiponship. And what a game! In one of the most excited final game we could win after overtime in Pécs! That was our 7th championship gold medal in our history! We finished with this great success an unforgettable season!
2011/2012. After a beautiful season we knew, the next will be much harder. Our one of the most important players, Kata Honti decided to go to Valencia. We had to leave Zane, Amber and Marissa too. We tried to build a more "hungarian" team, so we signed only one foreign player, Olexandra Kurasova who came back to Sopron after a maternity leave. We signed also a contract with Zsófia Fegyverneky, who came from the rival Pécs. The other new players were the hungarian-australian Zavecz Hanna and Krnjic Sara. In the Euroleague we were strong at home, but abroad we won only one game, in Tarbes. So we had no chance to reach the play-off.
It seemed, in Hungary we are stronger than our rivals. We didnt loose any games during the regular season! We signed also with Berndett Németh, who came back from Good Angels Kosice. Győr organized the Hungarian Cup Final4, where we won our 4th Cup gold medal in our history. In the final we beat the host team, Győr. We wanted to sweep the champ title too. Until the first game of the final it seemed, it will be easy. We killed Győr at the first game in Sopron by 19, but after we lost 2 games. It was really a shock for us! On the 4th we stood up from the floor, but the 5th game was again a nightmare for us. We lead 55-49 at the 35th minutes, but in the last 5 minutes we couldnt score and lost the final against a high motivated Győr. One gold and one silver medal, the result of the season. It wasnt a tragedy, but alltogether the end was disappointed.
2012/2013. With it we arrived at the current season. We will stay on the way we started many-many years ago. We refreshed our squad and let to go a lot of players. We wanted a full-motivated team, with a strong starting five and a young motivated bench, so we signed players who are ready for this: Jelena Milovanovic, Shenise Johnson, Anita Teilane, Orsolya Zsovár, Szandra Pál. We hope, we can make our supporters and fans happy with our young team in this year!
National and International results
1989/90 Hungarian Championship 8th place
1990/91 Hungarian Championship 6th place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place
1991/92 Hungarian Championship 9th place
1992/93 Hungarian Championship 1st place
1993/94 Hungarian Championship 5th place
1994/95 Hungarian Championship 5th place
1995/96 Hungarian Championship 4th place
1996/97 Hungarian Championship 6th place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place
1997/98 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Ronchetti-Cup Winner
1998/99 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place
1999/00 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague best of 8
2000/01 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague best of 8
2001/02 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague best of 8
2002/03 Hungarian Championship 3rd place, Euroleague best of 8
2003/04 Hungarian Championship 3rd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague best of 8
2004/05 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 3rd place, Euroleague best of 16
2005/06 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague best of 8
2006/07 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague best of 8
2007/08 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague best of 16
2008/09 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague FINAL4, 4th place
2009/10 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 2nd place, Euroleague Basic Season
2010/11 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague best of 16
2011/12 Hungarian Championship 2nd place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague Basic Season
2012/13 Hungarian Championship 1st place, Hungarian-Cup 1st place, Euroleague Basic Season, Slovakian-Hungarian Championship 2nd place