Solothurn

FC Solothurn took shape on 1 July 1901, and its club has spent most of its life at a level that matches the city's size rather than its ambitions. Seasons in the Nationalliga B came and went without threatening the top flight.

The exception was 1997–98. Solothurn reached the promotion play-off for the Nationalliga A and finished fifth in the group, a single point short of going up after a defeat to FC Basel played in front of 36,500 people at the club's own ground — still its record crowd, and a number no other Solothurn fixture has come close to since.

Hanspeter Latour spent thirteen years, from 1983 to 1996, building the side that eventually made that run. What followed it was less kind: relegation to the 1. Liga arrived in 2001, and Solothurn have stayed there ever since.