Werner Wenk (born 26 October 1922) is a Swiss former

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 le ...

who played in the 1940s and early 1950s as

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

. Wenk played his youth football by

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss football club based in Basel, in the Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been Swiss national champions 20 times, Swiss Cup winners 13 times, and ...

and advanced to their first team during their 1939–40 season. He played his domestic league debut for the club in the home game at the Landhof on 10 March 1940. He scored his first goal for his club during that game as Basel won 4–1 against local rivals FC Birsfelden. In the last game of the group stage in that season on 23 June Wenk scored a hat-trick as Basel won 6–1 against Solothurn. Basel were winners of the group stage and progressed to the play-off stage. Basel became 1. Liga champions winning the best of three final against Fribourg. August Ibach was team top league goal scorer with 19 goals,

Fritz Schmidlin Fritz Schmidlin (born 30 November 1914; date of death unknown) was a Swiss footballer who played for FC Basel in the second half of the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s. He played as midfielder. Schmidlin played his youth football by FC Bas ...

Hermann Suter Hermann Suter (28 April 1870 – 22 June 1926) was a Swiss composer and conductor. Biography Born in Kaiserstuhl, Aargau, Suter studied in the conservatories at Basel, Stuttgart and Leipzig, under Hans Huber and Carl Reinecke. He was an o ...

and Wenk himself each scored five times. Between the years 1940 and 152 Wenk played a total of 217 games for Basel scoring a total of 48 goals. 131 of these games were in the 1. Liga and Nationalliga, 26 were in the

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup tournament that has been organised annually since 1925–26 by the Swiss Football Association. Since 1999 the winner earns the chance to qualify for the UEFA Europa League or the UEFA Europa Conference L ...

and 60 were friendly games. He scored 29 goal in the domestic league, seven in the cup and the other 12 were scored during the test games. For the season 1952–1953 Wenk moved on to play for

Cantonal Neuchatel The 26 cantons of Switzerland (german: Kanton; french: canton ; it, cantone; Sursilvan and Surmiran: ; Vallader and Puter: ; Sutsilvan: ; Rumantsch Grischun: ) are the member states of the Swiss Confederation. The nucleus of the Swiss Con ...

in the Nationalliga B and then he ended his active football career. On the 4 April 2016 Werner Wenk celebrated his 70th wedding anniversary together with his wife Elsy Wenk-Fischer in the care centre in

Riehen Riehen (Swiss German: ''Rieche'') is a municipality in the canton of Basel-Stadt in Switzerland. Together with the city of Basel and Bettingen, Riehen is one of three municipalities in the canton. Riehen hosts the Fondation Beyeler (a privately ...

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:Wenk, Werner 1922 births Living people Men's association football midfielders FC Basel players Swiss men's footballers