Emil Abderhalden	Max Born	Josy Ebinger
Max Geldner	Wilhelm Glaser	Jean Grieder
Ferdinand Isler	Wilhelm Oser	Lucien Schmoll
Richard Strub	John Tollmann

Some of these men were rowers.  They were looking for an activity that was complimentary to their sport and happened upon football.  Others were open-minded academics and one feels that with their approach to football, which at the time was uncommon and unappreciated, they tried to escape from a narrow minded way of thinking.

For instance, Ferdinand Isler [the founder and first Captain of FCB] was a Professor at the Cantonal School in Fraudenfeld.  He was one of the great supporters of the game.  He edited a brochure of this new sport, he translated the rules from English into German and furthermore, he was one of the first Sports journalists in the Swiss media.

Emil Abderhalden and Fritz Schäublin were also academics.  The former was a famous Doctor of his time and a Physiologist at the University of Halle.  The latter was Headmaster of the Humanistic High School in Basel.  Mentioning their position in society should not be construed as pretentious in any way, but as proof that from the beginning well respected personalities were the driving forces behind FC Basel 1893.  The founding members did not elect any of these academics as their first Club President; instead they chose Roland Geldner.  He was considered by his contemporaries as a very ‘sophisticated’ and he was an extraordinarily talented footballer.

More than 100 years later Geldner can also be considered as the the first sponsor of FCB Basel:

“The pitch and the footballs” as noted in the meeting minutes by Jean Grieder, “were made available by Roland Geldner and gratefully accepted.  The pitch will be installed in the coming days in order to start play on November 26th.”

1893: The first match

The gentlemen were in a hurry, rightly so. They didn’t meet in a smoke filled room of the “Schuhmachern-Zunft” on 15th November 1893 to debate; they wished to find a way to play football as quickly as possible.  The first ever match in the history of FC Basel 1893 lasted two hours and it ended with a win for FCB on 20th November 1893.  This may sound sublime but a small, decisive correction is required; two club teams were chosen at random to play each other in this historic match, FCB vs FCB [so to speak!].  The first team against the reserves as one would call it today.

The result of this match played in the Landhof-Stadium, or rather Landhof-Meadow as one would have called it then, remains unknown.  However, the names of the teams which played in this first ever FCB match have survived.

In Team 1: Roland Geldner, Georg Geldner, Max Geldner, Ferdinand Isler, Fritz Schäublin, Josy Ebinger and Max Born.

In Team 2: Emil Abderhalden, Mario Arbini, John Tollmann, Adolf Hindermann, Wilhelm Glaser, Richard Strub, Lewis Gough and Jean Grieder.

As historic as this match may have been it could not be called ‘official’.  The actual ‘inaugural’  match took place a full two weeks after the practice match.  On December 10th 1893 FC Basel took on the Gymnasts of the Realschülerturnverein Basel and beat them 2:0.

FC Basel had to wait a half-year later until they were to play their second official match, but, for this fixture the Basel team travelled abroad.  The match was played in Strasbourg and the trip to the neighbouring Alsace soon became a tradition.  This first ‘international’ club match also turned out to be a humbling experience.  FC Basel lost the match 0:8.