1913–14 FC Basel season
# 1913–14 FC Basel season

The FC Basel 1913–14 season was their twenty-first season since the club's foundation on 15 November 1893. The club's chairman was Karl Ibach, but he stood down at the AGM on 25 September 1913. From that date Carl Albert Hintermann took over as club president. FC Basel played their home games in the Landhof in the district Basel-Wettstein in Kleinbasel, Basel.

## Overview

The Englishman Percy Humphreys was the first professional trainer that the club FC Basel had ever employed. 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 in the English North Eastern League. Prior to Humphreys, it had always been the team captain who had taken over the function of the trainer.

Basel played 32 matches in their 1913–14 season. 14 of these matches were in the domestic league and 18 were friendly games. Six of these were home games, played in the Landhof, one other home game was played on the Margarethenwiese in Basel, five others were away games in Switzerland and five games were played abroad. Basel played seven matches against German teams, one against the English team Bradford City and the other ten opponents were Swiss. Of these friendlies 10 were won and 8 ended with a defeat. In these 18 games Basel scored a total of 57 goals and conceded 47.

The Swiss Serie A 1913–14 was divided into three regional groups, East, Central and West. Basel were allocated to the Central group together with local rivals Old Boys and Nordstern Basel. The other teams playing in the Central group were Young Boys, FC La Chaux-de-Fonds, Étoile-Sporting FC La Chaux-de-Fonds, FC Bern and Biel-Bienne. Basel started well into the championship winning seven of the first eight games, the first four games straight off. After the new year break things turned against them and they were defeated three times. Basel lost contact to the Young Boys at the top of the table and ended the season in joint second position with FC Bern, they were three points behind the group winners. In their 14 games Basel scored 63 goals and conceded 33. The two highest scoring games were both played against FC La Chaux-de-Fonds. Basel won the home game 11–4 and the away game 10–1.

The Young Boys continued to the finals against Cantonal Neuchatel and Aarau, who eventually won the championship in the Finals. Last place in the group bottom was Old Boys, who therefore entered the play-off round against relegation, in which they were successful.

The Anglo-Cup was not played in this year and so, Basel could not defend the title that they had obtained the year before. But memories of this cup win soon faded anyway, because in fact the competition was discontinued completely due to World War I.

## Players

### Squad members

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

| No. | Pos. | Nation | Player |
| - | - | - | - |
| — | GK | SUI | Fridolin Wenger |
| — | DF | SUI | Paul Bettex |
| — | DF | SUI | Hermann Moll |
| — | DF | SUI | Peter Riesterer |
| — | MF | SUI | Fritz Albicker (II) |
| — | MF | SUI | Wilhelm 'Willy' Geisser |
| — | MF | GER | Josef Goldschmidt |
| — | MF | SUI | Ernst Gossweiler |
| — | MF | SUI | Emil Hasler |
| — | MF | SUI | Ernst Kaltenbach |
| — | MF | SUI | Otto Kuhn |
| — | MF | SUI | Emil Schreyer |
| — | FW | SUI | Fritz Aeppli |
| No. | Pos. | Nation | Player |
| — | FW | SUI | Christian Albicker (I) |
| — | FW | | Rudolf Bredschneider |
| — | FW | ENG | Percy Humphreys |
| — | FW | | Carl Schloz |
| — | FW | SUI | Karl Wunderle |
| — | | | Roger Breithaupt |
| — | | | Walter Flück |
| — | | | Max Glenck |
| — | GK | | Emil Fehr |
| — | GK | | Camillo Persenico |
| — | GK | | Schaltenbrand |
| — | | | ? Gossweiler |
| — | | | ? Hack |
| — | | | ? Rittel |

## Results

### Legend

Win  Draw  Loss

### Serie A

**Central group league table**

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 1 | Young Boys | 14 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 46 | 21 | +25 | 22 | Advance to finals |
| 2 | Basel | 14 | 9 | 1 | 4 | 63 | 33 | +30 | 19 | |
| 3 | FC Bern | 14 | 9 | 1 | 4 | 40 | 32 | +8 | 19 | |
| 4 | Étoile-Sporting | 14 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 34 | 34 | 0 | 15 | |
| 5 | Biel-Bienne | 14 | 5 | 2 | 7 | 33 | 34 | −1 | 12 | |
| 6 | Nordstern Basel | 14 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 29 | 34 | −5 | 11 | |
| 7 | La Chaux-de-Fonds | 14 | 3 | 2 | 9 | 26 | 57 | −31 | 8 | |
| 8 | Old Boys | 14 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 21 | 47 | −26 | 6 | To relegation play-off |
