Marcel Kunz (1943-2017) *74

was a Swiss former footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Kunz started his football with the youth teams of the local football club FC Gerlafingen before moving on to Basel in 1963. He came to Basel as second goalkeeper behind Kurt Stettler, who had been their goalkeeper since 1957 and who stayed first goalkeeper until 1965. Kunz played his debut for Basel on 8 September 1963 in the 1-0 away win against Grenchen. In despite of the fact that he broke his arm in April 1964 during the match against Schaffhausen, Kunz was Basels number one goalkeeper for twelve years and this also despite having strong competition from Jean-Paul Laufenburger for the place between the posts in the Basel Nationalliga A team.

Kunz won the Swiss championship title for the first time in Basel's 1966–67 season. Basel finished the championship one point clear of FC Zürich who finished in second position. Basel won 16 of the 26 games, drawing eight, losing twice, and they scored 60 goals conceding just 20.

In that season Kunz won the double with Basel. In the Cup final on 15 May 1967 Basel's opponents were Lausanne-Sports. In the former Wankdorf Stadium, Helmut Hauser scored the decisive goal via penalty. The game went down in football history due to the sit-down strike that followed this goal. After 88 minutes of play, with the score at 1–1, referee Karl Göppel awarded Basel a controversial penalty. André Grobéty had pushed Hauser gently in the back and Hauser let himself drop theatrically. Subsequently, after the 2–1 lead for Basel the Lausanne players refused to resume the game and they sat down demonstratively on the pitch. The referee had to abandon the match. Basel were awarded the cup with a 3–0 forfait.

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