Formed in , the club has been Swiss national champions 20 times, Swiss Cup winners 12 times, and Swiss League Cup winners once. Basel have competed in European competitions every season since β Since the club has played its home games at St. Jakob-Park , built on the site of their previous home, St. Jakob Stadium. Their home colours are red and blue, leading to a nickname of " RotBlau ". FC Basel was started by an advertisement placed by Roland Geldner in the 12 November 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 in the restaurant Schuhmachern-Zunft.
Eleven men attended the meeting, generally from the academic community, founding Fussball Club Basel on 15 November The club colours from the first day on were red and blue. Basel's first game was on 26 November , 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 2β0. Basel continued to only play friendly matches, until they joined the second Serie A championship [4] organized by the Swiss Football Association.
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 Serie A β01 was divided into two groups, an east and a 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.
At the beginning of the β33 season, the Austrian ex-international footballer Karl Kurz took over as club trainer. There were eight teams in Group 1 of the β33 Nationalliga. Basel finished the season in second position in the table, with seven victories from 14 games.
Basel won 4β3 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 β39 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.
