All credit to the visitors who produced a gutsy, hard-fought display to pluck the points from the Hammers who never led Friday's Premier League contest at any stage.

Second place in the league table was the incentive on offer for both sides at the start of the evening and had Arena secured the points, it would have been their highest standing for some years.

However, the Diamonds dashed those hopes with a series of fruitful hard ridden first turns that left the home side's riders to recover lost ground - all too often without success.

The visitors' effort was even more commendable as their skipper, Jesper Olsen, was forced to pull out of the match through injury and his side covered for his absence with use of the rider replacement facility with yielded seven points, less than the figure that the Dane would have envisaged had he been fit to take his four rides.

Both Troy Pratt and Leigh Lanham experienced poor returns as they were often shown little mercy in the fury of first bend turns yet neither rode badly although the pair were unable to muster a single heat win in their combined eight rides.

It was left to captain Colin White to hold the side together but despite four wins in six rides, his efforts alone were insufficient to contain the impressive Geordie outfit.

Newcastle took the lead as early as heat three, with the first of successive maximums and from then on were never headed.

Conceding another 1-5 in heat seven, the Hammers were floundering and were forced to use skipper White as a tactical substitute in heat eight as they started the race trailing 15-27.

He followed Shaun Tacey home for a maximum and then steered the Hammers to within four points of their opponents when he teamed up with Lee Dicken for a 5-1 to leave the home fans waiting expectedly for the fightback to continue but they were to be disappointed.

Newcastle gleaned a 4-2 win when Pratt fell when chasing hard after leader Kevin Little to leave Tacey in second before the Diamonds protected their advantage with three shared heats, the latter race after the impressive Dane Bjarne Pedesen beat off the challenge from Pratt and Lanham.

Six points ahead with two races left, the visitors wrapped up the two league points when Kevin Little shot away from the tapes to quickly settle the issue leaving Dicken to follow in faint hope.

Late consolation for the Hammers who were able to gain their third heat maximum of the evening in the final race through White and Tacey as they went down to their second home league defeat of the season.

Scorers (for Arena): Pratt 4+2, Tacey 12+2, White 15+1, Dicken 4+1, Lanham 5+1, Galvin 0, Clifton 3. (For Newcastle): Pedersen 15, Grant 2+1, Compton 12, Little 11+2, Olsen rider replacement, Juul 3+1, Birkenshaw 4+2

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.