DANNY Ford revealed Pirates suffered a four-figure loss during their first SGB Championship home meeting of the campaign and added: “All clubs are just fighting for survival.”

The Poole promoter was speaking after fellow Championship side Birmingham Brummies announced they had put their season on hold with immediate effect – and would not race again until July 1 at the earliest.

Brummies owners Peter and David Mason revealed “things have to change” with numbers at Perry Barr for the club to become viable, as they are suffering heavy losses with restricted crowds.

Wolves owner Chris Van Straaten has also revealed how the club are suffering “severe losses” operating under strictly reduced audience numbers.

Reacting to those comments, Ford told the Daily Echo: “Obviously it’s quite troubling news coming out of Birmingham but not entirely unexpected.

“The restrictions that ourselves and a few other clubs around have – it makes things almost unviable.

“Birmingham have made that decision to delay their fixtures temporarily and we fully respect that decision. If that’s going to help them survive long term – we need to support them in that.

“Some clubs are just fighting for survival at the minute. I feel like ourselves, Birmingham, Wolves are maybe the ones who are suffering more than anyone – but it’s definitely quite concerning.

“Everyone just needs to band together and get behind their respective clubs at the minute. These restrictions do make running a speedway team almost unviable.”

Pirates were restricted to a maximum capacity of 1,226 at Wimborne Road for last week’s home meeting against Berwick.

But with tickets purchased in smaller groups, around 1,000 people were in attendance, adhering to social distancing with facemasks worn at all times.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is tomorrow set to update the public on the roadmap back to normality amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Should the current level of restrictions be extended beyond the originally proposed date for further relaxation of June 21 – Pirates could face more hefty losses for home meetings.

“Our opening fixture was by no means profitable in any shape or form but we are bearing the losses at the moment just to get the club up and running. It’s not an easy time,” said Ford.

“We will need to assess things with regards to what happens on Monday. If it (the restrictions) get extended a couple of weeks, then that’s a completely different scenario to them being extended for a couple of months.

“We will have to weigh up our options and see where we can be financially because, at the minute, if we were running every week, it would be completely unviable.

“We won’t be running at home again until the June 30 now and that’s bought us a little bit of time. We are going to have to just wait and see, unfortunately.”