GRASSHOPPER CLUB ZÜRICH
Pre-season Match, GC/Campus, Saturday 19 July 2025, 3pm CEST (2pm BST)
West Ham United begin their pre-season fixture schedule ahead of the 2025/26 season by taking on Swiss Super League club Grasshopper Club Zürich in north-central Switzerland on Saturday afternoon.
Head Coach Graham Potter and his staff and squad have spent the week training across the border in south-western Germany’s Black Forest and will now put their work into practice for the first time in a game situation.
The first of five pre-season matches will pit the Hammers against Grasshopper for the second time in our history. The first meeting marked an 18-year-old Trevor Brooking’s first senior appearance in June 1967, with West Ham winning the summer tour match 1-0.
Grasshopper had finished fourth in the Swiss Nationalliga A in 1966/67, but the current squad have only avoided relegation from the Super League in each of the previous two seasons by winning a two-legged play-off.
How to get there…
Around 150 West Ham United supporters will have tickets for the game at GC/Campus on Saturday, and it is likely many will be based in Switzerland or Germany.
GC/Campus is situated about ten miles north-west of Zürich city centre, between the small towns of Dielsdorf and Niederhasli, near to the international airport.
As such, it should come as no surprise that the address is Dielsdorferstrasse 165, 8155 Niederhasli, Switzerland!
If you don’t have a car or want to take a taxi, catch a train from Zurich HB to Dielsdorf, from where it is an 18-minute walk along Niederhaslistrasse to the entrance to GC/Campus.
Where to stay…
If you do not live in the area, staying in Zürich is your most-likely option for accommodation.
There are numerous options on both sides of the river Limmat in the centre of the city, which itself sits at the northern end of Lake Zurich.
Remember, though, that prices are likely to be relatively high as we are now in the summer season.
What to do…
As a football fan, you are likely to be interested in the history of the game, so the FIFA Museum should be high on your list of places to visit. The address is Seestrasse 27, 8002 Zürich, Switzerland.
Opened in 2016, the FIFA Museum features permanent and special exhibitions, including one this summer to mark the UEFA Women’s European Championship finals, which are currently taking place in Switzerland.
An Alpine city, Zürich is home to art galleries, museums, a zoo and is surrounded by not only Lake Zurich but incredible mountain scenery.
What’s happened there before…
West Ham United visited Zürich as part of a three-match summer tour in June 1967, having played in the Finnish capital Helsinki, as part of HJK’s 60th anniversary celebrations, two days previously.
The match against Grasshopper, played on Thursday 8 June, saw teenager Trevor Brooking make his first senior appearance in a 1-0 win for the visiting Hammers, secured by a late goal scored by winger Harry Redknapp.
West Ham have visited Switzerland for tour matches on numerous occasions since 1924, facing Bern, Lucerne, FC Zürich, Basel, Kreuzlingen, St. Gallen, Aarau, Lausanne, Grenchen, Neuchâtel, Schaffhausen, Zug, Lugano, Servette (Geneva), Young Boys and Winterthur.
The Irons even took on the Switzerland national team twice, in 1934 and 1936, and knocked Lausanne out in the second round on the way to winning the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1964/65.
