That's the classic these opposition fans come out with. I recall wolves getting attendances as low as 4000 in the 80s ! We've been one of the best five supported clubs in the history of English football yet they come out with this. As for dodgy decisions we all remember the Bolly handball a couple of seasons ago !!
To be fair (and I am bound to try to partly justify it), Wolves absolute decline coincided totally with the Thatcher years and massive economic decline. Like elsewhere, Wolverhampton was decimated, especially its steel industry and its mining nearby (Cannock coalfield). People tend to think its always the north, but Wolverhampton is always right up there with Liverpool and Hull for very high unemployment rates, it stood at 37% in St Peters Ward (Molineux) in 1983. Just last week it was named yet again as the city/town with the highest youth unemployment in the UK, and 2 of its 3 constituencies being 2nd and 3rd worst in the UK regards the % of young people with no educational qualifications (Wolverhampton NE 36%, Wolverhampton SE 33% - with only a constituency in Birmingham being higher at 37%). This won't surprise you based on the originality of our fans songbook (:_. BTW, I know Manchester knows all about hardship - so no lessons intended.
But the worst of it was that the economic decline in the 1980s coincided with our decline and that was critical - our owners The Bhatti's just vanished, they were somewhere in Saudi but just deserted their responsiblities, to the point that no season tickets were printed...........the old joke was that even the milk bill went unpaid. That was the year no one could buy any season tickets, though I doubt many would have been sold, but that is why we got 4000 gates in 1986. You had 2 choices, pay on the turnstile to go in the 'crumbling' South Bank, or the Steve Bull stand that was 200 metres from the pitch. We tumbled from the top flight to bottom of Division 3 in consecutive seasons, and that last season is when we got 4000 crowds. But that is over 30 years ago and many Wolves fans today weren't even born then or were too young to influence those gates. Incidentally, when we got new owners in division 4 in 1988 we averaged 9855 and our highest gate in Division 4 that season was 19962. City were in Division 2 that year and averaged 19472 which is very credible for the time period. City fans have stuck with their team. But when City went through their real dip down to Division 3 in the late 90s the recession was well and truly over and gates everywhere had recovered.
So it is difficult to compare apples and pairs - gates everywhere were dreadful in the mid-late 1980s..........Villa average in the Division One 15000 in 1986, Chelsea average Division Two 12000 1983, Leeds average division Two 1986 13000, Leicester average Division Two 12000 1983, Newcastle average Division Two 16000 1982, Sheff Utd average 1987 Division Two 9000, Sunderland average 1987 Division Two 13000, WBA average 1987 Divsion Two 9000, West Ham average Division One 18000 1985, Spurs average Divsion One 1986 20,000 etc etc. But none went from Division One to Division 4 in consecutive seasons and I bet all those could buy Season Tickets.
But yes, I get that those gates will be held against us and the 1980s was a poor time to be in Wolverhampton - shit football team, no season tickets available, absolutely no jobs. We were nearly always a division 2 team in the 90s and averaged 22-28000. Since 2001 I think we sell out 95% of home games.
More recently when we did a double relegation to Division 3 just over six years ago gates held up quite well, we averaged 19800 in the 3rd tier with very few away fans. Now we average 30,000 (current capacity) so have attracted 7000 new home fans on average. Every club attracts new fans, I think we would average around 40,000 if we had the ground and input City have had, maybe more. All hypothetical of course, but that is a stark contrast with 4000 who kept on going during the dark days of the Bhatti's (and yes I have "I was at Chorley" t-shirt who duly beat us 3-0 in the Cup that dreadful year). It is a blot on our our history and we came within 6 minutes of liquidation that year.
I totally get that people remember our low gates and say 'abandoned' their team, but I just wanted to give it full context because the circumstances were extreme, though I understand it will be of little interest to most City fansand so I apologise for that.