Anglo-American Club Zürich (also Anglo-American F.C. Zürich) was a Swiss football club based in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, who are known for being the winners of the first official national football championship (then Serie A) in 1899. The team was composed mainly of a group of English-speaking students of the

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of the operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials ...

department at the Federal Polytechnic School. Their home ground was located at the ''Allmend'', which used to be a meadow in what is now Oerlikon.

History

The club shared close ties with the homonymous

rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically a ...

team, who consisted of

expat An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. The term often refers to a professional, skilled worker, or student from an affluent country. However, it may also refer to retirees, artists and ...

students from the same school and were attested as early as 1872. It is them the former borrowed their black-red color scheme from. While it is unclear when the football club emerged, some estimates place their founding year in the 1880s. In any case, their earliest attested game was played against Grasshopper Club in 1886. They competed in the inaugural 1898–99 Swiss Serie A season organized by the

Swiss Football Association The Swiss Football Association (, , , ) is the governing body of football in Switzerland. It organizes the football league, the Swiss Football League and the Switzerland national football team. It is based in Bern. It was formed in 1895, was a ...

(which several members were also part of), where they were crowned champions after beating Old Boys Basel 7–0 in the finals, winning a prize of 400

francs The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' ( King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centur ...

. In the following season, the club struggled with membership numbers due to its nature as a student association, retaining players for a short amount of time. Nevertheless, they finished 3rd in 1899–1900, but were forced to dissolve in 1900 due to the aforementioned shortage of members. Consequently, certain players moved to teams such as

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 ...

and Servette, some of whom eventually joined to form the ''Anglo-American'' ''Wanderers'' to compete in the 1903–04 season''.''

Honours

* Swiss Serie A: 1 :: 1899

References

{{Reflist Defunct football clubs in Switzerland Sport in Zurich Association football clubs established in 1884 1884 establishments in Switzerland Association football clubs disestablished in 1900 ETH Zurich