RICHIE Worrall admitted he had felt like speedway's forgotten man before Pirates boss Matt Ford came calling.

Worrall helped Belle Vue reach the Elite League play-off final last season but was frozen out of his parent club's team-building plans for 2017.

The 25-year-old got fixed up at Glasgow in the second tier but it took an injury to Poole's Brady Kurtz earlier this month to earn him his SGB Premiership chance.

Having joined on a minimum 28-day deal, Worrall made his Pirates debut in the home defeat to King's Lynn seven days ago, before featuring against the Stars 24 hours later and then at Wolverhampton on Monday.

The St Helens-born charger has at least six meetings left of his spell with the Dorset club – barring postponements – although he could ride himself into contention for a longer stay.

And Worrall, who joined on a 7.26 average, is pleased to have been handed the opportunity to impress.

Speaking ahead of tonight's home clash with Swindon, Worrall told the Daily Echo: "You try to be loyal with clubs and sometimes it doesn't work out because it's a numbers game, sadly, and if your number doesn't fit you are soon forgotten about.

"For one reason or another, things didn't work out at Belle Vue and I was left sidelined with an inflated average due to the way things were done in the winter.

"I've been in contact with several team managers and promoters since then. As soon as the slightest thing went wrong, I sent them a message saying, 'don't forget me'.

"People kept telling me that once everyone had done four home meetings and four away and everyone had been reassessed, I would be in a team then but that never came around.

"Weeks and weeks went by and I had kind of given up hope.

"But at 11pm one night, I was lying in bed when I had a phone call off Matt offering me this ride and I couldn't sleep then because I was very excited."

During his enforced break from the top flight, Worrall started a civil engineering company with his friend Shaun Cartilage. And now he has plenty on his plate due to that project and racing commitments with Poole, Glasgow and Polish side Rawicz.

Worrall added: "The main thing which is going to come out of this is I'm going to do four home matches and five away and I will get my true average then and will be more attractive to all the teams instead of just one.

"It's a busy month at Poole so, hopefully, we will get the meetings in without any rain. I've gone from being a part-timer to a full-timer and I'm not complaining but the mileage is going to be hard!

"The main thing I'm going to get out of it is my true average and nine more matches than I would have had."