‘A little year in hell’: when the biggest football clubs drop down a division

Hamburg, Manchester United, Rangers, Atlético Madrid and fans know great success. They also recall life outside the top tier

By Rhys Richards for These Football Times

Some football clubs exist in a perpetual yoyo state between success and failure, promotion and relegation. But what happens to fans of the biggest clubs when they drop down a division for the first time in living memory? Football has produced a few riches-to-rags stories of slumbering giants who sleepwalk off cliffs and into the depth of their domestic pyramid.

In October 2019, I travelled to Hamburg to see former European champions HSV during their first season outside the Bundesliga. For years, Hamburg had prided themselves on being the last founding club of the Bundesliga to taste relegation. The club even had a clock in the Volksparkstadion that counted how long they had been in the Bundesliga; it reached 54 years, 261 days, 36 minutes and two seconds.

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