During the previous four or five years the number of players joining and leaving the club was increasing considerably. The other Swiss clubs politics of buying new players was increasing strongly and transfer fees rose rapidly in this period. Basel, under the leadership of
Jules Düblin, were trying to stay clear of this transfer trading. But because at the beginning of the previous season they had lost important players, such as goalkeeper
Gianfranco de Taddeo to
Cantonal Neuchatel, midfielder
Kurt Maurer to
La Chaux-de-Fonds and striker
Walter Bielser to
Biel-Bienne, the Basel board of directors were changing their approach to the subject. Düblin explained the situation at the
AGM and the club members gave him the rights to strengthen the team.
Béla Sárosi was hired as new team manager. Various transfers were made,
Werner Schley returned from
Grasshopper Club,
Gottlieb Stäuble returned from
Lausanne-Sport,
Walter Bielser returned from
Biel-Bienne,
Silvan Thüler was hired from
Solothurn and
Peter-Jürgen Sanmann was hired from
Concordia Hamburg. The exact amount that this all cost is not recorded, but the club needed to take up credits, one of which came from the city of Basel over the amount of 30,000 Swiss Francs. As mentioned
Béla Sárosi was hired in as new team manager. The Hungarian ex-international footballer had been team manager by
Lugano the previous two seasons. He replaced
René Bader who continued as player. There were fourteen teams contesting in the
1955–56 Nationalliga A, these were the top 12 teams from the
previous season and the two newly promoted teams
Urania Genève Sport and
FC Schaffhausen. Again this season, the bottom two teams in the table were to be relegated. Basel won 10 of their 26 games and drew six times and lost 10 times. They scored 47 goals and conceded 50. Basel ended the championship with 26 points in 7th position. They were 16 points behind new champions
Grasshopper Club.
Grenchen and
Fribourg suffered relegation.
Josef Hügi was again Basel's top league goal scorer with 14 goals and he was joint seventh league top scorer behind
Branislav Vukosavljević from Grasshopper Club who had scored 33 times.
Gottlieb Stäuble was Basel's second best goal scorer with 13 goals and joint ninth league top scorer. Further,
Peter-Jürgen Sanmann netted six times. Four goals in one match could be noted for Hügi on 10 June 1956 and also a hat-trick for Sanmann in the same game as Basel won 9–1 against
Fribourg. This was seen by only 3,800 supporters, Basel's lowest home attendance that season. Basel joined the
Swiss Cup in the third principal round. They were drawn away against lower tier local team
SC Binningen, but because they waived the home advantage the match was played at the
Landhof and Basel won 5–0.
Rolf Keller scored a hat-trick in this game. In the fourth round they were drawn at home to lower tier
FC Emmenbrücke and Basel won 6–2. Josef Hügi scored a hat-trick in this game. In the fifth round Basel were drawn at home to
Biel-Bienne.
Gottlieb Stäuble scored a hat-trick and Basel won 7–3. In the quarter-finals basel were drawn away against
Cantonal Neuchatel, but here they were knocked out of the competition. == Players ==