2013: A YEAR OF CONTINUAL CHANGE - BUT ANOTHER GRAND FINAL

Building and re-building his team was practically a full-time job for Promoter Matt Ford in 2013. 
During the course of the season no fewer than fourteen riders were booked on contract, 29 guests were required and the rider replacement facility deployed in thirteen matches during the course of the campaign, so ploughing his way through averages and rider availability was second nature to Ford. But surely his biggest challenge came mid-evening on Friday 5th July.

The Pirates were engaged in league contest at Coventry and were two points down going into heat fifteen. The brilliant Turbo-Twins - Chris Holder and Darcy Ward were charged with trying to secure the first Poole 5-1 of the night and steal victory. But an horrific spill on the second lap left Holder trapped under the air-fence at Coventry in the final heat on July 13th. 

Up to that stage Holder was the only ever-present in the Pirates' nineteen matches and he had scored 233 points (and a further 10 bonus) so Ford knew he had his work cut-out to find  his thirteenth replacement; it had to be something special or a fifth league title success might have to be put on ice for another season. 

That special something struck Ford when he thought if I can't have the 2012 World Champion maybe I can get the 2011 one, thus he picked up the phone and asked Greg Hancock how he was fixed! It was undoubtedly a brilliant out-of-the-box thought and four meetings later The Grin was smiling in Poole colours. 

That ultimate defeat at Coventry, which earned Poole a consolation point left them in sixth place, four points outside the play-off cut and 11 points adrift of then leaders Wolverhampton. Significantly, the Pirates had ridden as many or more matches than those teams they were looking up at. 

By the end of the month, with rider replacement covering the seriously injured Holder, the Pirates had crept to joint fourth, level on points with Lakeside and knew realistically that there hopes of making those play-offs was to make that fourth place their own.  A Wimborne Road  thrashing inflicted by Peterborough on August 14th didn't help their cause too much but a penultimate league victory over Lakeside on September 2nd left them knowing that they had to win at Belle Vue and hope that Swindon would see of Lakeside in the Hammer' final match. 

Conditions for the Manchester visit were far from ideal,  Heavy rain showers throughout the afternoon and up until 6pm left the Kirkmanshulme Lane track excessively heavily and virtually un-raceable. Poole were able to ride it though and were four up when it became evident that some remedial track work was necessary after each rider had been out once. 
A further six heats were accomplished although the racing was not pretty and the track still far from ideal. As the night drew in the temperature dropped and moisture began rising from the heavily scraped surface  necessitating a further  consultation between the meeting steward, team managers and captains ruled that the track was unsafe to continue racing on and the result called. A result that had Poole seven points ahead (28-35) and so able to bank all four league points. A week later Swindon romped to a 54-38 win over Lakeside and Poole were they wanted to be, in the play-offs, keeping the dream alive for that fifth crown.

Table-toppers Birmingham took on Wolverhampton in an all-Midlands semi-final whilst a South-West semi pitched the Pirates against Swindon. A first leg ten point defeat at Blunsdon set-up a mouth-watering second leg in Dorset. It took nine heats to wipe out the deficit, but Swindon weren't giving up without a fight and re-established an aggregate lead albeit half of that they arrived with. But a grandstand powerhouse Pirates finish, dropping just two points in the final four heats sent the Pirates soaring into the Grand Final where Birmingham were the 'prize' having seen off Wolves 101-82.

Having negotiated the semi-final without further injury victim Rohan Tungate, the Pirates found themselves another man down as Micky Dyer was also ruled out of the final, and Poole were also obliged to stage their home leg first, something of foreign territory for the Poole club. They had scraped into the play-offs, overcome a semi-final scare, battled through an injury crisis,. Could they overcome the dominant Brummies?