The 1941–42 season was Fussball Club Basel 1893's 48th season in their existence. It was their third season in the 1st League (second flight of Swiss football) after being relegated from the Nationalliga in the 1938–39 season. They played their home games in 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 ...

, in the Wettstein Quarter in Kleinbasel. Albert Besse was the club's chairman for the third consecutive year. The team achieved promotion and reached 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 ...

final.

Overview

Eugen Rupf Eugen Rupf (16 June 1914 – 2000) was a Swiss footballer who played for Switzerland in the 1938 FIFA World Cup. He played for Grasshopper Club Zürich. He also played three seasons for Basel as player-coach scoring 20 goals in 41 appearances. ...

was

player-coach A player–coach (also playing coach, captain–coach, or player–manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. Player–coaches may be head coaches or assistant coaches, and they may make chang ...

for his second season. Basel played 38 games in their 1941–42 season. 22 in the league group, two in the play-offs, 10 in the cup and 4 were test games. They won 27 and drew eight, they were defeated only three times. In total they scored 114 goals and conceded just 33- There were twenty four teams contesting in the 1st League in the 1941–42 season, twelve in group East and twelve in group West. The winner of each group were to play a play-off for promotion to the Nationalliga the following year. Basel were allocated to group East together with the two other local teams Concordia Basel and FC Birsfelden. Basel started the league season well. On 31 August 1941 in the first league game against SC Juventus Zürich their striker Alex Mathys scored seven goals as Basel won by 10–1. There is no indication or evidence in the history books that this was not a goal scoring record for a single FCB player in a single match in the club's entire history. In the game on 18 January 1942 against

Schaffhausen Schaffhausen (; ; ; ; ), historically known in English as Shaffhouse, is a list of towns in Switzerland, town with historic roots, a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in northern Switzerland, and the capital of the canton of Schaffh ...

Basel won 11–0 and Erhard Grieder scored five goals. Basel finished their season as winners of group East while FC Birsfelden and Concordia were able to hold themselves clear of the relegation zone. Basel managed 18 victories and 3 draws from their 22 games, just one defeat. With a total of 39 points, scoring 77 and conceding just 15 goals Basel were five points clear of second placed Blue Stars Zürich. The promotion play-offs were then against group West winners

FC Bern Fussballclub Bern (FC Bern) is a Association football, football team from Bern, the capital city of Switzerland, who currently play in the Gruppe 1, in the Bern/Jura canton.https://www.fcbern1894.ch/ In 1921, the club won the Och Cup (that was ...

. The 1st leg was the away tie, this ended with a goalless draw. Basel won the 2nd leg at home at the

3–1 to achieve Promotion. In the

Basel started in the 2nd principal round and were drawn at home against local rivals Old Boys. Basel won 4–2 after extra time. In round 3 they were drawn at home and won 1–0 against another local team FC Birsfelden. The fourth round was another home tie and they beat the higher tier Nationalliga team

BSC Young Boys Berner Sport Club Young Boys (YB by short abbreviation, ) is a Swiss professional sports club based in Bern, Switzerland. Its first team has won 17 Swiss league championships and eight Swiss Cups. YB is one of the most successful Swiss footbal ...

by three goals to nil. The next round gave Basel another home tie against 1st League team

Solothurn Solothurn ( ; ; ; ; ) is a town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. It is located in the north-west of Switzerland on the banks of the Aare and on the foot of the Weissenstein Jura mountains. The town is ...

and they completed an easy victory, winning 6–1. The quarter-final draw saw them playing at home again, this time against Nationlige team

Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...

. The game ended 1–1 after extra time. The two clubs could not agree on a date for the replay, therefore the winners were to be decided by lottery decision. Basel qualified on toss of a coin. The semi-final gave Basel their sixth home match and their third Nationalliga club

FC Grenchen FC Grenchen is a Swiss football club, based in Grenchen. They currently play in the 2. Liga, and play their matches at the Brühl Stadium. History FC Grenchen was founded in 1906. In 1937 they gained promotion to the top league of Swiss fo ...

. On March 29 at

Stadion Rankhof Stadion Rankhof is a football stadium in Basel, Switzerland. It has a capacity of 7,600 with 1,000 seats and 6,600 standing places. The record attendance of the original stadium was about 30,000 spectators. The stadium was rebuilt between 1993 and ...

the semi-final between Basel and Grenchen ended with a goalless draw after extra time. A replay, on 4 April, was required. In the Gurzelen Stadion in

Biel/Bienne Biel/Bienne (official bilingual wording; German language, German: ''Biel'' ; French language, French: ''Bienne'' ; Bernese German, locally ; ; ; ) is a bilingual city in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. With over 55,000 residents, it is the ...

the replay ended with a victory.

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 organ ...

scored both Basel goals as they won 2–0. Basel thus qualified for the final which was just two days later on 6 April in the

Wankdorf Stadion Wankdorf Stadium (, ) was a football stadium in Bern, Switzerland, and the home of Swiss club BSC Young Boys. Built in 1925, it hosted the finals of the 1954 FIFA World Cup, the 1960–61 European Cup, and the 1988–89 European Cup Winners' Cup ...

in Bern against the Nationalliga team Grasshopper Club. The final ended goalless after extra time and a replay was required here as well. The replay did not take place until the end of May because the Nationalliga championship had ended with a heat and thus a play-off was required here too between the Grasshoppers and Grenchen. In fact it required two games, the first ended 0–0 in Bern, the seconded ended 1–1 in Basel. The championship title was awarded to GC on goal average. The cup final replay was on 25 May, again in the

, against the then Nationalliga champions Grasshoppers. Basel led by half time through two goals by

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 ...

, but two goals from Grubenmann a third from Neukom gave the Grasshoppers a 3–2 victory. Thus the Grasshoppers won the

double Double, The Double or Dubble may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Multiplication by 2 * Double precision, a floating-point representation of numbers that is typically 64 bits in length * A double number of the form x+yj, where j^2=+1 * A ...

Players

;Players who left the squad

Results

Legend

Friendly matches

Pre and mid-season

Winter break

Nationalliga

1st League group East, matches

1st League group East, table

Promotion play-off

''Basel won 3–1 on aggregate''

Swiss Cup

;Notes

References

Sources

* Rotblau: Jahrbuch Saison 2014/2015. Publisher: FC Basel Marketing AG. * Die ersten 125 Jahre. Publisher: Josef Zindel im Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel.
FCB team 1941–42 at fcb-archiv.ch

External links

FC Basel official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:1941-42 FC Basel season FC Basel seasons

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...