I really hope so because the former has always been a reminder to me of how short-sighted our sale of the Red Robin Social Club and the adjoining land was in the early 1970s.
Sorry to correct you but,.... AFC have never owned the ground or the red robin club. AFC had a lease on the ground from TMBC and shared a lease on the car park.
When Alty were in major financial trouble in around 2000, the club surrendered the lease (which by then was getting quite short) of the shared use of car park for 250K which effectively (together with great work by Geoff Goodwin and board) removed the clubs debt.
Far-sighted in retrospect actually.
I don't dispute any of what you say as I remember those events. However, my understanding is derived from events that took place back in the 60s, when the club leased the land covered by the fingerprint of the ground from Altrincham Borough Council including where, under Peter Swales' chairmanship, the Board would approve the construction of the Red Robin Club.
Then in the 1970s, the Red Robin Club (bricks and mortar) owned by Alty was sold and about 10-15% of the land we had held on leasehold was transferred to the new owners of the Red Robin Club. Someone at Alty realised that it would be prudent to hang on to the lease for half the car park from the Borough Council in case there might be any future right of way or development issues. So glad they did that.
I don't know how much was raised. It was in the days before the property boom had kicked off and so I doubt that it was very much relatively speaking but imagine what we could have done with that end of the ground if we still held the lease.
There were some folks some years back who told me that the money had to be raised to pay for debts that had been growing for years because of money borrowed to build the Main Stand. Might be true I guess.