Promotion came back after two years. But in 1982/83 the Berliners finished bottom of the Bundesliga and were relegated again. The elevator downwards really started moving then.\n\nAfter three seasons in the second division, a 2:0 defeat at Alemannia Aachen in May 1986 sent the club down into the amateur Oberliga.
From then on Hertha usually played its home games in the Poststadion in front of no more than 2,000 spectators. The highlight of that decade of horror was the 1987/88 top game against Türkiyemspor Berlin, which drew 12,000.