The

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss professional Association football, football club based in Basel, in the Basel-Stadt, Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been List of Swiss footba ...

1912–13 season was their twentieth season since the club's foundation on 15 November 1893. The club's chairman was Ernst-Alfred Thalmann, all together it was his eleventh presidential term and his fifth season in succession. At the AGM Thalmann stood down and Karl Ibach took over. The club announced that to that point it had grown to have over 300 members at over half of them were active football players. FC Basel played their home games in the

Landhof The Landhof was a sports stadium in the district Basel-Wettstein in Kleinbasel, Basel. It was the former and first home stadium of FC Basel. It is mentioned for the first time in a chronicle in the second half of the 18th century as a ''nice s ...

in the district Basel-Wettstein in Kleinbasel,

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

Overview

Emil Hasler Emil Hasler (8 November 1901 – 15 January 1986) was a German art director who worked on more than a hundred films during his career. These included a number of Weimar classics such as '' Diary of a Lost Girl, M'' and ''The Blue Angel''.Prawer ...

was the team captain for the fourth year running and as captain he led the trainings and was responsible for the line-ups. In their 1912–13 season Basel played a total of 37 matches, 19 were friendly games, 14 were in the domestic league and 5 in the Anglo Cup. Of the friendly games just three were played in the

, six others were away games in Switzerland and ten games were played abroad. During the pre-season the team travelled to Germany twice, played against Karlsruher FC Phönix and

Freiburger FC Freiburger FC () is a German association football club based in Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg. Freiburger FC were one of the founding clubs of the DFB (German Football Association) in 1900. History Founded in 1897, for many decades FFC were th ...

, and travelled to France to play Strassburger FV. During the winter break the team made a tour to

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

and before Christmas played

VfR Mannheim VfR Mannheim is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg formed in 1911 out of the fusion of Mannheimer FG 1896, Mannheimer FG 1897 Union, and FC Viktoria 1897 Mannheim. The club captured the n ...

, on Christmas day played ETB Schwarz-Weiss Essen and on boxing day played Düsseldorfer FC Fortuna 1911. The team came home with two victories and one defeat. At easter the team made a tour to eastern Germany. They played against SC Erfurt on easter Sunday, against Sportlust Dresden on easter monday and against SC Wacker Leipzig the day after. At the end of the season Basel played host to English club

Preston North End Preston North End Football Club, commonly referred to as Preston, North End or PNE, is a professional association football club in Preston, Lancashire, England. They currently play in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English footbal ...

. Of the friendly games 10 were won, three were drawn and six ended with a defeat. The Swiss Serie A 1912–13 was divided into three regional groups, an east, a central and a west group. Basel were allocated to the central group together with local rivals Old Boys and

Nordstern Basel FC Nordstern Basel is a football team from Basel, Switzerland. Currently playing in the Swiss 8th division, FC Nordstern Basel has spent 35 seasons in the Swiss top flight, last in 1982. They were runners-up in the Swiss league in 1924, 1927, and ...

. The other teams playing in this group were Young Boys,

FC La Chaux-de-Fonds FC La Chaux-de-Fonds is a Swiss football club based in La Chaux-de-Fonds. It was founded on 4 July 1894 and used to play at the Stade Charrière. History The team has won the Swiss first division in seasons 1953–54, 1954–55, and 19 ...

, Étoile-Sporting FC La Chaux-de-Fonds,

FC Bern Fussballclub Bern (FC Bern) is a Association football, football team from Bern, the capital city of Switzerland, who currently play in the Gruppe 1, in the Bern/Jura canton.https://www.fcbern1894.ch/ In 1921, the club won the Och Cup (that was ...

and Biel-Bienne. Basel started badly, with three defeats and a draw in the first four games. Despite seven victories and one draw during the next ten games, the team could not reduce the gap to the top of the league table. Basel ended the season in fourth position. They were four points behind group winners Old Boys, who continued to the finals.

Lausanne Sports Football Club Lausanne-Sport is a Swiss football club based in Lausanne in the canton of Vaud. Founded in 1896, Lausanne Sport compete in the top-tier Swiss Super League after being promoted in the 2022–23 Swiss Challenge League Season. The ...

won the championship. Group bottom was Biel-Bienne, who therefore entered the play-off round against relegation, in which they were successful. The Englishman Percy Humphreys was the first professional trainer that the club

had ever employed. Prior to Humphreys signing, it had always been the team captain who had taken over the function of the trainer. Under club chairman Karl Ibach, Humphreys signed his contract and began his duties on 1 April 1913. He had previously been head-coach for

Hartlepool United Hartlepool United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Hartlepool, County Durham, England. The team competes in the National League, the fifth level of the English football league system. They were founded in 190 ...

in the English

North Eastern League The North Eastern League was an association football league for teams in the North East of England. The league was founded in 1906 and was initially successful, with teams defecting from the rival Northern Football Alliance to play. Although ...

. The Anglo-Cup was a forerunner to the Swiss Cup. It was held for the fourth time this season and the first round was held on 1 May. In the first round Basel were drawn at home against lower classed

Solothurn Solothurn ( ; ; ; ; ) is a town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. It is located in the north-west of Switzerland on the banks of the Aare and on the foot of the Weissenstein Jura mountains. The town is ...

. In the second round, in the quarter-final and in the semi-final against East group teams, these being St. Gallen,

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

and

Winterthur Winterthur (; ) is a city in the canton of Zurich in northern Switzerland. With over 120,000 residents, it is the country's List of cities in Switzerland, sixth-largest city by population, as well as its ninth-largest agglomeration with about 14 ...

and in that order. All these games were played at home in the

and Basel won each game. In the final, which was played in the Hardau Stadium in

on 29 June 1913, Basel played against lower classed Weissenbühl Bern and won 5–0. Humphreys led Basel to win their first national title. But memories of this soon faded, because the Anglo Cup was not played the following year and in fact it was discontinued completely due to

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Players

;Squad members

Results

;Legend

Friendly matches

Pre-season

Winter break to end of season

Serie A

Central group results

Central group league table

Anglo-Cup

References

Sources

* Rotblau: Jahrbuch Saison 2014/2015. Publisher: FC Basel Marketing AG. * Die ersten 125 Jahre. Publisher: Josef Zindel im Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel.
FCB team 1912–13 at fcb-archiv.ch

External links

FC Basel official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:1912-13 FC Basel season FC Basel seasons