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Alex Wirth (born 1 April 1953) is a Swiss retired footballer and tradesman. Wirth played for FC Basel as a defender in the 1970s. He was the owner a cheese specialty shop and renowned as a cheese connoisseur.

Football career

Wirth played his youth football with FC Basel (FCB). He joined the club's first team in its 1970–71 season under head coach Helmut Benthaus. Due to his age, however, Wirth played mainly with the Inter-A-Junior team (later named U-21). In 1971, he was a member of the team that won the Swiss youth championship for the first time in FCB's history with the former professional Anton Schnider as coach. He advanced to Basel's reserve team, but was often called up to the first team and helped out in the Cup of the Alps, friendly games or domestic league when Benthaus needed a defender. Wirth played his debut for the club in the Swiss Cup home game at the St. Jakob Stadium on 29 November 1970 against Bellinzona. He came on at half time to substitute for the injured Peter Ramseier as Basel won 2–0.

Wirth played his league debut for the first team in the home game on 9 December 1973 when Basel was defeated 2–3 by Young Boys. He scored one goal for the club in a test game on 2 September 1975 when Basel won 3–0 against FV Lörrach. Later that month, he suffered a broken ankle and fibula. It took a year for the injury to recover before he could play again. This was in the Swiss Cup match on 16 October 1976 against Xamax.

Wirth stayed with the club's first team until 1978 and played a total of 25 games, scoring that one mentioned goal. Seven of these games were in the Nationalliga A, two in the Swiss Cup, seven in the Cup of the Alps and nine were friendly games.

Private life

Following his footballing career with Basel, Wirth took over the dairy business that his mother and father had started in August 1957. As the "young, hopeful player" (Wirth over Wirth) broke his ankle and his fibula at a soccer match and his father suffered a heart attack, "out of necessity I started working in his business". "Learning by doing was the order of the day," he said, who now offers 150 instead of five types of cheese. "I established the reputation of the specialties." In August 2017, Wirth passed the business, named Wirth's Huus, on to his son Lucas, the third family generation.

References

1. Schmid, Andreas W. (13 January 2023). "FCB-Meisterspieler Toni Schnider gestorben" [FCB champion player Toni Schnider died] (in German). FC Basel 1893 AG. Retrieved 13 January 2023.
2. "FC Basel - AC Bellinzona 2:0 (0:0)". FC Basel Archiv. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
3. "FC Basel - BSC Young Boys 2:3 (0:1)". FC Basel Archiv. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
4. "FV Lörrach - FC Basel 0:3 (0:2)". FC Basel Archiv. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
5. "Neuchâtel Xamax - FC Basel 4:1 n.V. (1:1, 0:1)". FC Basel Archiv. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
6. "Alex Wirth - FCB-Statistik". FC Basel Archiv. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
7. Note the Swiss-German pun in the company name for non-German speaking readers. The name Wirth is pronounced "virt" (not with the English "TH"). The German word Wirt is translated into English as "landlord". The Baslerdüütsch word Huus is German Haus is translated "house". The German word Wirtshaus is translated as "public house", "saloon" or more often as "tavern".
   - Knechtli, Peter (16 May 2017). "Trotz Pensionierung: Käse-Laden von Alex Wirth bleibt erhalten" [Despite retirement: Alex Wirth's cheese shop remains intact]. Online Reports (in German). Retrieved 28 October 2023.

Sources

• Josef Zindel (2018). FC Basel 1893. Die ersten 125 Jahre (in German). Basel: Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7245-2305-5.
• Verein FC Basel Archiv (in German)

External links

• Wirth’s Huus online

• FC Basel players
• Swiss men's footballers
• Men's association football defenders
• 1953 births
• Living people
• Footballers from Basel-Stadt
• 20th-century Swiss sportsmen