Georg Wilhelm 'Georges' Geldner (born 7 July 1872) was 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 ...

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 ...

who 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 ...

in the 1890s.

Football career

During a visit to England, his brothers Roland Geldner and Max Geldner they had seen the new football game. They placed an advert in the local newspaper to arrange a meeting about founding the Football Club Basel. Max attended the founders meeting and joined the team that evening. Roland was appointed as the club's first president. Georges joined the team a few days later. Geldner trained with the team and eleven days after the club was founded the first game took place. Not much has been passed down from the first game that the FCB played on 26 November 1893. The club members met at 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 ...

and played a game among themselves. It is considered as the first, but unofficial, game of FC Basel. The names of the players of both teams were recorded at that time, which can also be read in the annals of FC Basel, and the result was also passed on for posterity, Team 1: with the brothers and Georges, Roland and Max Geldner, Ferdinand Isler, Max Born, Josy Ebinger and Fritz Schäublin, beat Team 2: with John Tollmann, Adolf Hintermann, Wilhelm Glaser, Richard Strub, Mario Arbini, Emil Abderhalden, Lewis Gough and Jean Grieder by seven goals to two. The first football match that the club held was in the

on 10 December against the football team of the club RTV/Realschüler-Turnverein, a secondary school student gymnastics club. Geldner and both his brothers also played in this match, which the FCB won two goals to nil. Teammate Charles Volderauer, as businessman, had good connections and used them from the very beginning. As early as June 1894, Volderauer organised the journey to visit Strassburger FV. Geldner travelled with the team by train to

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

and played their first match against a foreign team, which ended with a 0–8 defeat. Georges Geldner stayed with the team only this one season and during this time he played in both these games for Basel without scoring a goal.

Notes

Footnotes

References

Sources

* Rotblau: Jahrbuch Saison 2017/2018. Publisher: FC Basel Marketing AG. * Die ersten 125 Jahre. Publisher: Josef Zindel im Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel.
Verein "Basler Fussballarchiv" Homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Geldner, Georges FC Basel players Swiss men's footballers 1872 births Date of death missing Men's association football players not categorized by position