1983/84: Wolves

You fear for Wolves. A shocking start to the 2025/26 campaign has seen the club fail to win a league match in 11 attempts, manager Vitor Pereira shown the door, and the prospects of survival looking slim even at this relatively early stage of the season. It turns out that selling your best players and failing to replace them adequately is not a recipe for success.

A season to be fearful undoubtedly. But surely whatever happens to Wolves during this campaign cannot plumb the depths that supporters had to endure during the 1983/84 season and beyond. A decade that started so positively descended into despair as the club dropped like a stone.

Winning the League Cup in 1980 against Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest, Wolves fans celebrating at Wembley had experienced the perfect start to the decade. But things would unravel quickly. Within a year manager John Barnwell had left the club, and Wolves suffered relegation from the top flight in 1982.

Tracing the decline of Wolves in the 80s arguably starts with the decision to spend £3 million on the John Ireland stand (now the Steve Bull stand) at Molineux - echoes of a similar tale at Ipswich - the club financially drained during a time of declining attendances. Relegation was bad enough, but very soon the very existence of Wolves was in doubt.

With debts totalling £2.5 million, the club was minutes away from going out of business in July 1982. Yet a consortium led by former player Derek Dougan saved the day - forming a new company called Wolverhampton Wanderers (1982) Ltd - with the investors promising to turn Molineux into a leisure facility.

Dougan immediately got to work, sacking manager Ian Greaves and replacing him with Shrewsbury assistant manager Graham Hawkins. The appointment was seen as a gamble, but Dougan backed Hawkins and his knowledge of second division football. Fans that were merely content to have a club left to support would be handed a bonus during a memorable 1982/83 season.

Promoted to Division One as runners-up behind QPR, Hawkins combined the experience of John Burridge, Geoff Palmer, Peter Daniel, Kenny Hibbitt and Andy Gray, with talented youngsters. But Hawkins knew the squad needed strengthening if the club wanted to compete at a higher level. 

Hawkins drew up a list of players rumoured to include David Seaman, Mick McCarthy, Paul Bracewell, and Gary Lineker, but the only money spent on transfers would be the £80,000 paid for Rotherham winger Tony Towner. The lack of investment in the playing staff indicated that all was not well at the club. 

History reveals that Wolves were not in safe hands. Behind the scenes, the Bhatti brothers - owners of Allied Properties - were hoping to develop Molineux and the surrounding area. Yet these plans never got off the ground. Over the next few years, the Bhatti brothers did little to improve the squad; the 1983/84 season was a taste of what was to come.

In total, Wolves would use 33 players during their troubled season, 13 of those teenagers at the start of the campaign. You don't win anything with cubs, as Alan Hansen didn't quite say. The Guardian preview of the season would prove accurate: "Wolverhampton Wanderers look the least accomplished of the promoted sides and may struggle."

The season actually began promisingly, a Palmer penalty giving Wolves a lead after two minutes against Liverpool. Alas the 1-1 draw in front of 26,249 at a sun-drenched Molineux would be the dawn before the darkness. Two days later, Wolves would again take the lead through a Wayne Clarke goal, but a brace from Charlie Nicholas saw Arsenal leave with three points.

The next couple of months would be the stuff of nightmares. Seven league defeats, just two draws and defeat over two legs against third division Preston in the Milk Cup second round emphasised the state of the club. Six of the league defeats saw Wolves concede three or more goals in a match, something that would happen 16 times that season.

Hawkins spoke honestly after a 4-0 loss at Luton in September. "I was frightened it would get to the stage where Luton might score six or seven goals. Today we were outclassed. We have to learn and learn fast." But the hits just kept on coming.

A 3-0 defeat to Manchester United at the end of October sent Wolves to the bottom of the table, and just to cement their position, the next match ended in a 5-0 humiliation away at Nottingham Forest. "Before yesterday's game, Wolves must have been hoping that something - anything - would turn up to re-route their luck." Julie Welch wrote in the Guardian. Wolves would need more than luck to lift their hopes.

The departure of Andy Gray for £250,000 to Everton in November did little to cheer the mood. Purchased for £1.49 million in 1979, the financial loss on Gray highlighted the decline in the transfer market. Loan players arrived in Andy Blair and Danny Crainie. Yet Wolves were paying the price for their failure to build a squad capable of surviving in the top flight.

A 3-0 defeat at home to West Ham and a 0-0 draw against Coventry handed Hawkins and his team the unenviable record of going 19 matches without a win - a statistic that had stood at the club since 1922 - but just a week later came a brief moment of joy during the gloom.

Without an away point all season, Wolves won 3-1 at rivals West Brom. Crainie scored twice - his second was a thing of beauty - prior to joining the club from Celtic for £20,000. Their first league win at their 15th attempt that season may have provided some optimism. Yet within a few weeks reality struck.

After a 5-0 defeat to Watford in December - featuring a Mo Johnston hat-trick in eight minutes - Dougan handed Hawkins the dreaded vote of confidence: "Graham Hawkins will remain as manager of this club as long as I am chairman." Shortly after Dougan's backing, a first half Alan Smith hat-trick resulted in a 5-1 loss at Leicester. At least a 0-0 draw against Stoke - in front of just 8,677 people at Molineux - stopped the rot.

Local councillor John Bird did not see the funny side to Wolves' plight. "They have brought this town into disrepute, making Wolverhampton the butt of every comedian's joke," he complained. "We must have talks as soon as possible to find out where Allied Properties interests really lie. On Saturday's performance [the 5-0 loss to Watford] it is not in football."

Hibbitt had his own say on the Watford debacle. Perhaps with tongue firmly in his cheek, the club legend came up with an unforgettable quote: "We've gone over it time and time again on the video and, if you take away their five goals, there was nothing between the teams." Soon Hawkins was getting involved in the gallows humour.

After consecutive victories on Boxing Day and New Years Eve against Everton and Norwich respectively, Hawkins joked that he now had to guard against complacency. When Wolves then defied all football logic by winning 1-0 at Anfield - teenager Steve Mardenborough scoring the winner - maybe the great escape was on.

A little over a month later, Mardenborough would be loaned to Cambridge - talk about out of the frying pan - with Wolves adding two new players in an attempt to turn things around. Full back Mark Buckland arrived from AP Leamington - making a move from scaffolding to Division One football - and yet another loan signing in Scott McGarvey came in from Manchester United.

Just two league wins post-Anfield sealed the fate of Wolves and Hawkins. A 1-0 win against Nottingham Forest came courtesy of a Paul Hart own goal, and Leicester were beaten by the same score in the last home match of the campaign. But Hawkins had departed once the club had been relegated at the end of April.

Inevitably, Hawkins' sacking and his claims for compensation were handled badly by a club. "I thought I was working with honourable men and that we could part with a handshake," Hawkins complained. It would take seven years for Hawkins to get his full payment. During this time, the very survival of the club was once again in doubt.

The end of the 1983/84 season was suitably depressing. Just 6,611 spectators turned up for a defeat against Ipswich in April - Wolves' lowest home attendance in 47 years - with the Guardian's Russell Thomas describing a "morgue-like atmosphere". Two days later, Gray scored one of Everton's goals in a 2-0 win that officially relegated Wolves. 

Under the caretaker management of Hawkins' assistant Jim Barron, the final two away defeats summed up the campaign. A 4-0 reverse at Notts County (attendance 5,378) and the same result at Stoke marked the end of Wolves' ill-fated season. Some of the statistics during the 1983/84 campaign provide an insight into the mess.

Just six wins in 42 league matches; 27 goals scored, with Clarke finishing as top scorer on six goals; 80 goals conceded; 9 points on their travels - albeit six of those gained in memorable wins over West Brom and Liverpool; just 12 goals scored away from home; but maybe it was matters off the pitch that painted the bleakest picture.

With players still waiting for promotion bonuses from 1983 and the Hawkins saga starting, Mahmood Bhatti's declaration that "the club must stand on its own feet," should have sounded alarm bells. Graham Turner was linked to the vacant manager's post, before Tommy Docherty arrived in the summer. The appointment seemed risky. But in truth, prime Alex Ferguson would have struggled to keep Wolves afloat in the subsequent years.

"Molineux may have to gird itself for another rearguard action against the almost unthinkable, the Third [division], next season," Thomas had written after the loss to Ipswich. Sadly for Wolves fans, this forecast was spot-on. When the club dropped to the basement in 1986, and then lost to Chorley in the FA Cup, rock bottom had been reached.

Relegation in 2025/26 would obviously be a bitter pill to swallow for Wolves fans. But at least if they do go down, the club will hopefully be in a better position than they were in 1984, a season that most Wolves fans of a certain age might want to throw in their own Room 101.