Editing FC Basel (section)

===The early years===
FC Basel was started by an advertisement placed by Roland Geldner in the 12 November 1893 edition of the ''Basler'' national newspaper, requesting that a football team be formed and that anyone who wished to join should meet up the following Wednesday at 8:15 in the restaurant Schuhmachern-Zunft. Eleven men attended the meeting, generally from the academic community, founding '''Fussball Club Basel''' on 15 November 1893. The club colours from the first day on were red and blue.

Basel's first game was on 26 November 1893, an internal match between two ''ad hoc'' FCB teams. Two weeks later, FCB had their first official appearance in a game against a team formed by students from the high school gymnastic club. FCB won 2–0. Basel continued to only play friendly matches, until they joined the [[1898–99 Swiss Serie A|second Serie A championship]] organized by the [[Swiss Football Association]]. The Serie A was divided into three regional groups, an east, a central (with FCB) and a west group. The winners of each group qualified for the finals. Basel did not qualify for the finals and they did not compete in the championship the following season.

The [[1900–01 Swiss Serie A|Serie A 1900–01]] was divided into two groups, an east and a west group. Basel were with three teams from Zürich and two other teams from Basel, [[BSC Old Boys Basel|Old Boys]] and [[Fortuna Basel]] in the west group. Basel ended the season with two victories, two draws and six defeats in 5th position in the group. Basel did not have much of an early footballing success, waiting 40 years before winning their first trophy.

[[Gyula Kertész]] coached the side from 1928 to 1930.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.worldfootball.net/player_summary/gyula-kertesz/|title=Gyula Kertész|website=worldfootball.net}}</ref> At the beginning of the 1932–33 season, the Austrian ex-international footballer [[Karl Kurz]] took over as club trainer. There were eight teams in Group 1 of the [[1932–33 Nationalliga]]. Basel finished the season in second position in the table, with seven victories from 14 games. The play-off game between the second placed teams from both groups was held in Basel at the [[Stadion Rankhof]], but the home team lost 3–4 to [[Servette FC|Servette FC Genève]]. In the [[Swiss Cup]], Basel advanced to the final, which was played in the [[Hardturm]] in [[Zürich]]. Basel won 4–3 and thus their first ever national title, defeating arch-rivals and reigning cup-holders Grasshoppers in what is still considered to be one of the best cup finals in Swiss football history.

During the following five seasons, Basel were positioned towards the middle of the Nationliga, not having much to do with the championship not having to worry about relegation. But the [[1938–39 Nationalliga]] did not mean well with them. With just five wins and with twelve defeats, they finished in the last position in the league table and were relegated.

The 1941–42 season was Basel's third season in the 1st League (second flight of Swiss football) after relegation. [[Eugen Rupf]] was [[player-coach]] for his second year. Basel finished their season as winners of group East. In the play-offs against group West winners [[FC Bern 1894|Bern]], the away tie ending with a goalless draw and Basel won their home tie 3–1 to achieve Promotion. In the Swiss Cup five home games, a coin toss in the quarter-final and a replay in the semi-final was needed to qualify for the final. The final against Grasshoppers ended goalless after extra time and a replay was required here too. In the replay – played at the [[Wankdorf Stadion]] against the Nationalliga champions – Basel led at half-time through two goals by [[Fritz Schmidlin]], but two goals from Grubenmann a third from Neukom gave Grasshoppers a 3–2 victory.

After just three seasons in the top flight of Swiss football, Basel suffered relegation again, but achieved immediate re-promotion in the 1944–45 season.

[[Anton Schall]], another Austrian ex-international, became the club's new trainer. Basel finished the [[1946–47 Nationalliga A|Nationalliga A season]] in fourth position, with 12 victories from 26 games, scoring a total of 60 goals; top league goal scorers were [[Traugott Oberer]] (13) and [[René Bader]] (10). Basel won the cup for the second time as they beat [[FC Lausanne-Sport|Lausanne Sports]] (who had also been runners-up the previous year) 3–0 in the final at the [[Stadion Neufeld]] in [[Bern]]. Paul Stöcklin scored two goals and Bader scored the other one.

At the beginning of the 1952–53 season, René Bader took over the job as club trainer from [[Ernst Hufschmid (footballer)|Ernst Hufschmid]], who had acted as trainer the previous five years. Bader acted as [[Player-coach#Player-managers in association football|player-manager]] and Willy Dürr was his assistant; Dürr stood at the side line when Bader played. Basel won their first league title in [[1952–53 Nationalliga A|1953]] and ended the season four points ahead of [[BSC Young Boys]]. Basel won 17 of the 26 games, losing only once, and they scored 72 goals conceding 38. [[Josef Hügi]] was the team's top league goal scorer.

The [[Czechoslovakia]]n manager [[Jiří Sobotka]] was the club manager at this time, he taken the job over from [[Jenő Vincze]] the year before. Basel finished the championship in sixth position. Heinz Blumer was Basel's top scorer this season with 16 goals, [[Karl Odermatt]] their second best goal scorer with 14. The [[Wankdorf Stadium]] hosted the Swiss Cup final on 15 April 1963, and Basel played against favourites Grasshoppers. Two goals after half-time, one by Heinz Blumer and the second from Otto Ludwig, gave Basel a 2–0 victory and their third Cup win in their history. [[Peter Füri]] played in all games save the final due to an illness.

On 26 December 1964 FCB played against [[Grasshopper Club Zürich|Grasshoppers Zürich]] in the quarter-finals of the [[Swiss Cup]]. They decided the match 3–1 for themselves in overtime. This was to be the last match for the popular Basler captain of that time [[Hans Weber]], because just seven weeks later he died of cancer. Between his first appearance in 1949 and his death in February 1965 he made 281 appearances for Basel scoring 48 goals.