They certainly were but they only had one season in Division 2 (
1974-75) when they had six home attendances of over 50k and one on 30th November, 1974 at home to Sunderland, of 60,585.
Source Similarly, Villa 'suffered' just two seasons in Division 3 (1970-71 and 1971-72) but had very good crowds. On 12th February 1972, Villa at home to Bournmouth drew a crowd of 48,110, a crowd - at the time - which was a record for the Third Division. This was beaten on Dec. 26 1979 by the laughably-named 'Boxing Day Massacre' at Hillsborough where 49,309 attended. But this shows where comparisons are futile. On the day of the BDM, there were no buses running, it was pay-on-the day and cost a couple of quid to get in (when our South Stand was opened in 1975, it was £3.50 for a seat - still thought of as 'posh' compared to standing.) The return match with Wendy at BDTBL on April 5th got a crowd of 42,526 (and 'thousands locked out'). So, over 90k attending two matches in the Third Division.
As ever, the pigs had to put their own fucking biased slant on the return game:
'Think you will find that was mainly down to the fact that we had at least 25000 in the ground, check out the old vid when McPhail scores for them , not a blade to be seen on the John street,he got to the kop before he found one!!' Porktalk. So crowds change, but fucking Wednesday never do...
But would Man. U or Villa fans have stuck around for 6 seasons in the third tier? Or even the mighty pigs? In their last visit to Division 3, the pigs averaged 17,821 (2010-11) but - by the following season (2011-12 - the season where Ched was wrongly imprisoned) - excitement of promotion and overtaking the Blades - saw the pigs' crowd lifted to a less-than-impressive 21,336.
Source
I even remember Newcastle getting a crowd of 7,184 for a home league game around 1979.