Alex Wirth (born 1 April 1953) is a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

retired

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

and tradesman. Wirth played for

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 ...

as a defender in the 1970s. He was the owner a cheese specialty shop and renowned as a cheese connoisseur.

Football career

Wirth played his youth football with FC Basel (FCB). He joined the club's first team in its 1970–71 season under head coach

Helmut Benthaus Helmut Benthaus (born 5 June 1935) is a German former association football, football player and coach. He spent his best playing days at Westfalia Herne and his best coaching days at FC Basel. Early career Born in Herne, Germany, Herne, Benthau ...

. Due to his age, however, Wirth played mainly with the Inter-A-Junior team (later named U-21). In 1971, he was a member of the team that won the Swiss youth championship for the first time in FCB's history with the former professional

Anton Schnider Anton Schnider (22 October 1936 – 4 January 2023) was a Swiss international footballer who played in the 1950s and 1960s. He played as midfielder. Club career Schnider first played for Grenchen during the 1955–56 Nationalliga A season, but ...

as coach. He advanced to Basel's reserve team, but was often called up to the first team and helped out in the

Cup of the Alps ''Coppa delle Alpi'' (translated as Cup of the Alps) was an official football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualifi ...

, friendly games or domestic league when Benthaus needed a defender. Wirth played his debut for the club in the

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup competition that has been organised annually since 1925–26 season by the Swiss Football Association. The Swiss Cup final is usually the most important game of the year with a high attendance. The co ...

home game at the

St. Jakob Stadium The St. Jakob Stadium was a football (soccer), football stadium in Basel, Switzerland and the former home of Swiss club FC Basel. It was built in view of the 1954 FIFA World Cup, and as well as serving as a club stadium, it hosted several import ...

on 29 November 1970 against

Bellinzona Bellinzona ( , ; ; is a municipality, a List of towns in Switzerland, historic Swiss town, and the capital of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. The town is famous for its Three Castles of Bellinzona, three castles (Castelgrande, Montebello, Sa ...

. He came on at half time to substitute for the injured

Peter Ramseier Peter Ramseier (29 November 1944 – 10 October 2018) was a Swiss international football player who played as a defender during the 1960s and 1970s. Career Born in Bern, Ramseier played his youth football with FC Zähringia (now named Breiten ...

as Basel won 2–0. Wirth played his league debut for the first team in the home game on 9 December 1973 when Basel was defeated 2–3 by Young Boys. He scored one goal for the club in a test game on 2 September 1975 when Basel won 3–0 against FV Lörrach. Later that month, he suffered a broken ankle and fibula. It took a year for the injury to recover before he could play again. This was in the

match on 16 October 1976 against Xamax. Wirth stayed with the club's first team until 1978 and played a total of 25 games, scoring that one mentioned goal. Seven of these games were in the Nationalliga A, two in the

, seven in the

and nine were friendly games.

Private life

Following his footballing career with Basel, Wirth took over the dairy business that his mother and father had started in August 1957. As the "young, hopeful player" (Wirth over Wirth) broke his ankle and his fibula at a soccer match and his father suffered a heart attack, "out of necessity I started working in his business". "Learning by doing was the order of the day," he said, who now offers 150 instead of five types of cheese. "I established the reputation of the specialties." In August 2017, Wirth passed the business, named Wirth's Huus, on to his son Lucas, the third family generation.Note the Swiss-German

pun A pun, also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from t ...

in the company name for non-German speaking readers. The name Wirth is pronounced "virt" (not with the English "TH"). The German word ''Wirt'' is translated into English as "landlord". The Baslerdüütsch word ''Huus'' is German ''Haus'' is translated "house". The German word ''Wirtshaus'' is translated as "public house", "saloon" or more often as "tavern".
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References

Sources

*
Verein FC Basel Archiv

External links

Wirth’s Huus online
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wirth, Alex FC Basel players Swiss men's footballers Men's association football defenders 1953 births Living people Footballers from Basel-Stadt 20th-century Swiss sportsmen