SHOCKED Matt Ford hit out at news Pirates could face punishment over their controversial Lakeside postponement and insisted: “No rule was broken.”

The Speedway Control Bureau has confirmed plans to discuss the possibility of taking action after Poole called off their May 22 home clash with the Hammers, who Pirates visited in the Elite League last night.

Poole promoter Ford made the shock postponement decision after his re-declared team had been struck by injury in the lead up to the scheduled Wimborne Road showdown.

With Przemyslaw Pawlicki ruled out, Pirates claimed that the sport’s management committee had offered them no facility to cover and ordered them to revert to their original 2013 line-up.

As Ford had already invested around £20,000 in the team re-shuffle, he refused and called off the match before quickly going public with his reasons.

However, in an article in the Speedway Star under the headline ‘Pirates in dock’, SCB chief Graham Reeve said the move would be scrutinised on July 10, with bosses to decide if Poole have a case to answer.

That came after rival supporters had reacted angrily to Ford’s suggestion that Pirates would face no punishment – because the Dorset outfit said Lakeside had “agreed” to the postponement.

Some fans have called for Pirates to receive a similar penalty to Belle Vue – who were fined and slapped with a points deduction after calling off a clash with Pirates this season.

However, with reports that two Belle Vue riders had missed flights after an initial claim from the Aces that the decision had been forced by a burst water pipe, Ford insists there are clear differences.

He told the Daily Echo: “I am shocked to read that the SCB feel the need to discuss it when two teams agreed to call off a meeting. My request went in to Jon Cook (Lakeside chief) and at no point did Jon say ‘no’ or that he was unhappy to do it.

“A fixture this week was called off between Peterborough and Wolverhampton – very late in the day again – due solely to the fact that a facility was not available to Peterborough for Kenneth Bjerre. These things happen.

“But it (Pirates’ postponement) is by no means even similar to the Belle Vue incident where two riders missed a flight and the other heat leader was injured.

“This was to do with a financial commitment the club had made and we would have been left high and dry if we had ridden. No one has been hurt and no rule has been broken, which is why I am kind of saddened to read that the SCB feel the need to discuss something which was agreed between the two clubs concerned.”

Cook, meanwhile, said he understood Ford’s reasoning and largely backed his Pirates counterpart.

But the Hammers chief added: “There has been a little bit of confusion created by the use of the word agreed. We didn’t agree, yet we didn’t object.”