PIRATES chief Matt Ford has broken his silence on the Hans Andersen row to describe claims of alleged average manipulation as “totally ludicrous”.

The Poole Castle Cover boss was responding to accusations of cheating and calls for an independent inquiry, which have been led in recent days by Lakeside promotion team Stuart Douglas and Jon Cook, as well as Coventry co-promoter Allen Trump.

The row is centred around Pirates’ Elite League clash at Swindon on May 7, where it is alleged they feigned an injury to Joe Screen so he would not reach the 12 match cut-off and receive an increased 2009 average, while Trump also raised Pirates’ five engine failures and one tape break during that meeting.

With Screen remaining on his 2008 figure and captain Bjarne Pedersen and star Chris Holder struggling, Ford was able to fit Andersen into his new-look team.

But speaking to the Echo yesterday, Ford labelled such talk as “crazy” after confirming that Andersen was NOT in line to return to Wimborne Road at the time of Pirates’ trip to Swindon.

“The two riders we were hoping to fit in on May 7 when we rode at Swindon were Magnus Zetterstrom and Daniel Nermark, whose parent club Workington had us permission to speak to,” explained Ford.

“Those two riders’ averages would have easily fit into our set-up with no need for any form of manipulation whatsoever.

“It was common knowledge that Ales Dryml was on a 28-day loan and that we’d be making a change with our doubling-up riders. Those two were set to come in to replace Dryml and Carl Stonehewer. At no point did we need to manipulate because it would’ve worked easily on their current averages.

“The facts of the matter are that while I first spoke to Peterborough on May 5 about Hans’s availability, after Peterborough stated to me they intended to use Hans in their own team I backed off immediately.

“While I was out of the country, the situation regarding Peterborough and Hans changed and permission was given to Coventry to take Hans on loan and also to Belle Vue and Ipswich to discuss with Hans a return to England.

“We came back into the race late on and the reason Hans wanted to come to Poole was because we had a full team place available, which Coventry didn’t.

“And we ride on Wednesdays, which was probably the biggest plus for Hans because he desperately didn’t want to ride on a Thursday with his GP commitments.

“So Hans made a decision on which club he wanted to come to himself, at a later date, over a week after the said match at Swindon.

“If people stopped to consider the actual stats and timings of when the Hans Andersen deal was brokered, they’d see it was a week after the event.

“When we rode at Swindon, Hans Andersen was not in our plans because he was going to join Peterborough, his parent club.”