How Wolves plunged to the lower leagues and nearly ceased to exist - Part 21: Desperate fight to save Wolves from extinction
In more detail than ever before, the Express & Star tells the full Bhatti brothers story – a troubled era that saw Wolves plunge to depths of the lower leagues and face financial oblivion. In Part 21, desperate attempts are made to save Wolves from oblivion.
With most football fans across England preoccupied with the impending 1986 World Cup in Mexico, Wolverhampton Council leader John Bird decided to take a holiday in Cornwall. He would not get much in the way of relaxation.
As he sunned himself on the beach, he had no reason to know that back in Wolverhampton his personal aide John Grogan was frantically trying to contact Lloyds Bank to find out whether receivers had been called in at Molineux. Once it had been established that was the case, Grogan headed south where he spent three days briefing the council leader on the unfolding drama. Councillor Bird's hopes of getting away from it all had to be put on hold.
While Grogan was keeping his boss up to speed with the fast-changing situation, back in Wolverhampton Bird's deputy Peter Bilson was meeting with receiver Michael Jordan with a view to putting together a rescue package.
On June 2, a hurriedly arranged meeting of the council's ruling Labour group formed a nine-strong sub-committee to negotiate the purchase of Molineux, the club's training ground at Castlecroft, and other essential assets.
Over the four days that followed, Councillor Bird, now back in Wolverhampton, held daily meetings, including one with the dissident Wolves Supporters Club which had been evicted by the Bhattis.
Following the Express & Star's bombshell report about the possibility of the club quitting the Football League, the newspaper and the council agreed to set up a joint public meeting on June 19. Having gauged the level of public support, Bird publicly pledged to put together a rescue package.
He would quickly discover this would be more easily said than done.
On June 25, Bird met the receiver again, who told him that the club owed £3 million, with about a third of that owed to the Bhattis, £800,000 owed to the bank, and a similar amount owed to other assorted creditors.
Bird and Jordan made a joint approach to the Football League asking for some flexibility with regard to debts, but their request was bluntly rejected. Bird met with local businessmen again on June 30, but made little progress, the scale of the debts proving to be an obstacle.
The Express & Star decided to put pressure on the Football League to relax its strict adherence to the rule on debt by organising a coach for supporters to lobby a meeting of the body in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The league was unmoved. On July 7, Football League secretary Graham Kelly repeated the league's insistence that all debts would need to be cleared if Wolves were to retain their Fourth Division status. A drop into the Conference was looking increasingly likely.
