DANNY Ford said the invite for Pirates to compete in the Premiership KO Cup came ‘out of the blue’ at the British Speedway Promoters Ltd AGM.

Pirates are set to compete against the country’s best next season in the cup after picking up the Championship treble last season.

Premiership CEO Phil Morris said they felt it would be good to have eight clubs in the competition, with seven in the Premiership, and invited Poole to complete the eight.

Promoter Ford said it was a ‘very exciting opportunity’ and one that the club had accepted provisionally at this stage.

“[There’s] still a few things to consider, logistics of it aren't massively straightforward, but we're working over that over the coming months with the Premiership CEO Phil Morris,” Ford told the Daily Echo.

“It's exciting and we're very excited that hopefully we can pull this off.”

Ford explained that the invite to compete was a surprise at the AGM.

“[It came] completely out of the blue at the AGM,” he said.

(Image: Richard Crease) “But it didn't take us too long to consider it.

“We are very eager to get this done, so when the opportunity did arise, we accepted provisionally.

“Now we’ve just got to put meat on the bones to figure out exactly how this is going to work.

“Obviously we're building a team up to Premiership standards with the bulk of our current team, but there'll be a few changes in there, which isn't going to be easy, but we'll be working very hard to achieve it.”

On the opportunity to take on the country and the world’s best, Ford said: “I think mainly I think it's going to be a fantastic opportunity for those supporters who have been missing out on seeing some of the best riders in the world.

“You look at that league and there truly is some of the best drivers in the world.

“There's multiple world champions in there, so it's very exciting for our supporters most of all and our sponsors.

“But there's definitely an opportunity for some riders to go out there and prove themselves against some of the world's best.

“I don't want to get carried away with things at the minute.

“There's still a hell of a lot to sort out. But yeah, it certainly is exciting.”