Rovers are hoping to confirm a full pre-season itinerary in the coming days ahead of the 2008/09 season.

The Pirates have already agreed to play Weymouth and Torquay United away from home in July, as well as embarking on a tour of Sweden and Denmark in the same month.

At least one midweek game will then be played at the Memorial Stadium, with another game at Whaddon Road on Saturday 2nd August, the weekend before the season starts.

Opponents are still being lined up and other fixtures may also be scheduled for the six weeks of pre-season build-up.

"Some of our pre-season games have already been arranged, starting with Weymouth and Torquay," first team coach Paul Trollope told bristolrovers.co.uk.

"Those two fixtures are a step up from our early games in recent years, but as we have moved up a level we felt we needed a greater challenge and a better quality of opposition to test us early on. We feels that two games against Blue Square Premier opposition will give us that.

"We then go abroad for three matches, where we particularly feel that the quality of the training facilities and the standard of the opposition will be a huge benefit for us.

"Our opponents for the games at the Memorial Stadium and Whaddon Road have yet to be confirmed, although as they are two showpiece games, we are talking to teams that play a high standard of football.

"There has been a lot of speculation about us playing some Italian teams, but we are keeping our options open for now. We want the games to give us a good test, but we don't want to play huge clubs who are going to field their reserve teams.

"We need to attract the right sized clubs who will bring strong squads and make them two competitive games for us."