Marcel Kunz

Club

Born in Gerlafingen, Kunz started his football with the youth teams of the local football club FC Gerlafingen, advancing to their first team in summer 1962. One year later he was signed by Basel for their 1963–64 season under head coach Jiří Sobotka. Kunz came as reserve goalkeeper behind Kurt Stettler, who had been the team's goalkeeper since 1957 and who stayed as first choice goalkeeper until 1965. Kunz made his very first appearance for the team on 10 August 1963 in a friendly game against FC Gerlafingen to say thank you for the transfer, which FCB won 4–1. Kunz played his domestic league debut for Basel on 8 September 1963 in the 1–0 away win against Grenchen. In his fourth league match, in April 1964, he broke his arm during the game against Schaffhausen, which forced him out of the game for some time. To the beginning of the 1965–66 season Helmut Benthaus transferred in from 1. FC Köln and became FCB's player-coach. He replaced Jiří Sobotka as team manager. Benthaus consolidated the internal goalkeeping hierarchy, after Sobotka had never been able to make a clear decision between Jean-Paul Laufenburger, Hans-Ruedi Günthardt and Kunz in the previous season. From here on, Kunz was number 1 between the posts and it remained that way for the following ten seasons, even if Laufenburger and later the young up-and-coming Hans Müller were also very reliable when there was a change due to injury or for reasons of form. Kunz won the Swiss championship title for the…

Even to his playing times Kunz was employee of Ankerbrauerei, a brewery in Frenkendorf. The Ankerbrauerei was taken over by Feldschlösschen and after his football career Kunz devoted himself entirely to his profession career as sales representative for the Feldschlösschen AG. Right up until his retirement, Kunz remained faithful to the brewery in Rheinfelden. In 1968 Kunz married Sylvia Dienst, a daughter of the legendary referee Gottfried Dienst. They had two children, daughter Corinne and son Sascha, and they lived in Riehen bei Basel which, until his death, remained the home of the Kunz family. In July 2017 FC Basel announced that their former goalkeeper had died on 22 July 2017 in the Basler Clara Hospital after a long illness.

Basel Swiss League champions: 1966–67, 1968–69, 1969–70, 1971–72, 1972–73 Swiss Cup winner: 1966–67, 1974–75 Swiss Cup runner-up: 1969–70, 1971–72, 1972–73 Swiss League Cup winner: 1972 Coppa delle Alpi winner: 1969, 1970 Uhren Cup winner: 1969, 1970