Interlaken

Interlaken lives off tourists who come for the mountains between the Thun and Brienz lakes, and for a long stretch the town's biggest sporting club had nothing to do with the peaks at all. FC Interlaken was founded in 1904, in a room at the Hotel Merkur, and it grew into the largest sports organisation in the Bernese Oberland, with around 800 members drawn from a town that runs mostly on hiking boots and rail timetables.

The club has never won a national title and plays several tiers down the Swiss pyramid, in the 2. Liga run by the Bernese-Jura football association. What it has done, reliably, is produce players who left for bigger things. Milaim Rama came through Interlaken between 1994 and 1997 before moving on to FC Thun and, eventually, the Switzerland national team. Nelson Ferreira followed a similar path and went on to set the appearance record in the Swiss Super League with Thun. Neither stayed — the town's football, like its economy, exports what it raises.

The fixture that matters locally is against SV Meiringen, a short trip over the Brünig toward Lucerne, billed simply as the 2. Liga derby. There is no European run or cup final in the club's past to point to, just the odd Swiss Cup tie against a higher-division side that briefly puts Interlaken's name next to a professional one; a match against FC Bulle was on the calendar for the 2026/27 season.

Matches are played at the Sportanlage Lanzenen, a ground built for the club rather than for crowds. It holds 1,500.