Thanks to numerous British influences, Switzerland became a footballing nation early on – and not only in its club names.
Thanks to numerous British influences, Switzerland became a footballing nation early on – and not only in its club names. Archive Young Boys Berne

How Switzerland became a footballing nation

The Swiss Football Association was founded on 7 April 1895. But football actually became popular in Switzerland some time before that and can be attributed to the country’s strong international links in the 19th century.

Simon Engel

Simon Engel

Simon Engel is a historian and is responsible for public relations work at Swiss Sports History.

People from Bern are very attached to their home city and proud of their famous dialect. It is therefore all the more strange that Bern’s football team has an English name: Young Boys (YB). And the motto “Young Boys forever” can be found in various places around the YB’s home ground, Wankdorf Stadium. Sound like a modern English marketing slogan? Not at all. From the very beginning, the motto was always an important part of Wankdorf Stadium.
The players personally immortalised the club motto in the newly completed Wankdorf Stadium in 1925.
The players personally immortalised the club motto in the newly completed u003cemu003eWankdorf Stadiumu003c/emu003e in 1925. Archive Young Boys Berne
Painting rather than passing: YB players in Wankdorf Stadium, 1925.
Painting rather than passing: u003cemu003eYBu003c/emu003e players in Wankdorf Stadium, 1925. Archive Young Boys Berne
Since then, it’s been all about the yellow and blacks for eternity. But in fact this is a (love) story that goes back to way before the stadium's construction. To another century in fact. The slogan was invented by members when the club was set up in 1898 and is used by the Young Boys to this day. But why of all things an English club name and motto?
The statutes of YB, at the time still known as the Footballclub Young-Boys, from March 1898.
The statutes of YB, at the time still known as the u003cemu003eFootballclub Young-Boysu003c/emu003e, from March 1898. Archive Young Boys Berne
Football was introduced to Switzerland during the second half of the 19th century, predominantly by British schoolchildren, students, merchants and teachers. They brought the game with them from England – the birthplace of modern football – when they came to work or study in Switzerland, and encouraged the Swiss to play.

Conversely, some Swiss people – albeit a relatively much smaller number – discovered football during stays in Britain and helped make it popular when they returned home to Switzerland. One such example is Treytorrens de Loys. He studied engineering at King’s College London in the 1880s before starting his career in the Swiss Army. In 1913, he was promoted to major general and commanded the 2nd Division of the Swiss Army in the First World War. Treytorrens de Loys brought his love of football back to Switzerland and thanks to him, the sport gradually caught on in senior military circles.

Not only the name of the sport in Swiss German - "tschuute" or "tschutte", "schuute" or "schutte" - comes from English ("to shoot"), but also terms such as penalty, corner or goalie are still common in Swiss football today. Also, the Swiss football pioneers didn’t use the German word ‘Fussball’ but football, clubs sometimes had English names, like the Old Boys Basel and the Grasshoppers Club Zurich, the Swiss football governing body was called the Swiss Football Association (in English) when it was set up in 1895, and defenders were called backs.
Anglicisms galore: an article from the Schweizer Sportblatt, November 1898.
Anglicisms galore: an article from the u003cemu003eSchweizer Sportblattu003c/emu003e, November 1898. e-periodica
We cannot say with any certainty where and when football was first played in Switzerland. The earliest evidence suggests the region around Lake Geneva from the 1860s. For example, press from that time features reports and announcements of matches in which Brits from Geneva and Lausanne met to play football. In addition, football was already being played at the schools Château de Lancy in 1853 and La Châtelaine in 1869, although the pupils were mainly the offspring of wealthy British families. The first football clubs were set up in the 1870s, and the Swiss were also in on the act. For example, Switzerland’s oldest existing football club, FC St. Gallen, was set up in 1879 by merchants and former students of the Institut Wiget in Rorschach, who had discovered football through their English teacher while studying there.
The FC St. Gallen team, circa 1881.
The u003cemu003eFC St. Gallenu003c/emu003e team, circa 1881. Wikimedia
The Château de Lancy football team, 1853.
The u003cemu003eChâteau de Lancyu003c/emu003e football team, 1853. Wikimedia
The strong presence of Brits and the economic ties with the United Kingdom in trade and tourism were key reasons why football was ‘imported’ and caught on relatively early in Switzerland. Modern football – modern in the sense of a game with fixed and codified rules – spread in the British Isles between 1840 and 1860 (there is evidence of ‘wild’ folk football with no codified rules as early as the late Middle Ages). Compared with other countries in continental Europe, it is also interesting to note that the sport spread faster in countries that were more industrialised when football emerged. Besides Switzerland, this was particularly the case of Belgium and Denmark. The industrial age also gave rise to a young and aspirational social class who advocated free trade, cosmopolitanism and competition and saw these values reflected in football, with its universal rules and direct competition between two teams.
A football match from 1897. Rules followed? Yes. Competitive sport? Hmmm... YouTube
Switzerland’s international ties also played a part in the further spread of football in continental Europe, with German, French and Italian football pioneers discovering the game at Swiss universities and grammar schools, and Swiss merchants and academics setting up football clubs in southern Europe. The best-known example is Hans ‘Joan’ Gamper from Winterthur who, with a group of like-minded individuals, set up FC Barcelona in 1899. Gym teachers from French-speaking Switzerland were also invited by the Bulgarian education minister to teach at various schools, where they got students into football.
Hans Gamper in a photo from 1896.
Hans Gamper in a photo from 1896. Wikimedia
Football was also played at a number of state schools in Switzerland from the 1880s, and in 1898 found its way into the Eidgenössische Turnschule, which was a sort of core curriculum for gym and sports teaching. Apart from in the catholic conservative cantons, the educational institutions and curricula at the time were mainstream liberal, and football was a good fit as it shared the same ethos. But above all, the game was compatible with Swiss schools because in its original form at upper middle class, elite public schools in Britain, it had a profoundly educational (in the sense of morally instructive) aspiration in that it was about competition, following rules, and developing team spirit and a certain brand of masculinity.
The Swiss national football team training in the woods, circa 1960.
The Swiss national football team training in the woods, circa 1960. Swiss National Museum / ASL
It was designed to be character-building and to make boys into disciplined and healthy men. Accordingly the Eidgenössischen Turnschule of 1898 states: “A good footballer is characterised by fast, energetic, but completely selfless action that is geared only to the general interest of the game, which probably best illustrates the value of football as an educational method.” In German-speaking countries, the word Körpererziehung was used to describe this specific notion of education, in other words the idea of a healthy mind in a healthy body, and physical training influencing the mind and intellect of young people. Many of the pioneering football clubs were also guided by the idea of Körpererziehung, for example, the first statutes of the Grasshopper Club Zurich stated that one of the club’s goals was to “educate the body”, while Bern’s Young Boys talked about “strengthening the body”.
A brisk march at the Solothurn cantonal gymnastics festival in Olten, 1921
A brisk march at the Solothurn cantonal gymnastics festival in Olten, 1921 Swiss National Museum
For the first footballers, there appeared to be a more important factor at play that added to the game’s appeal, as Fritz Schäublin, member of FC Basel from 1893, wrote in his memoirs about the pioneering age: “At the time, we played football because we wanted to fulfil our desire for physical activity more freely than in a gymnastics club, and we hoped to find that satisfaction in football.” The reason Schäublin was so put off by gymnastics was because many gym exercises at the time (and until about the 1960s) were strongly reminiscent of a military drill. Besides front hip circles and handstands, they also involved synchronised marches and parades.

Although the gymnasts, like the footballers, were often from the middle classes, also promoted the ideal of Körpererziehung and were also gym teachers who got students to play football in schools, the powerful, conservative and nationalist gymnastics movement initially fought hard against the new sport. It claimed that football was a one-sided, dangerous and un-Swiss sport as it had been imported from a foreign country. It also said that footballers only trained for fun, rather than to prepare for civic duties, such as military service. But this did nothing to dampen the growing popularity of football –  it is still one of the most popular sports in the country, with 280,000 playing the beautiful game every weekend.

Swiss Sports History

This text was produced in collaboration with Swiss Sports History, the portal for the history of sports in Switzerland. The portal focuses on education in schools and information for the media, researchers and the general public. Find out more at sportshistory.ch

Published on: 06.04.2023

Modified on: 07.10.2025

URL: https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2023/04/how-switzerland-became-a-footballing-nation/

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