First Thursday night for Diamonds.

The Newcastle Diamonds are staging their first Thursday home meeting in living memory as part of a frantic schedule of five matches in ten days which they hope will complete a successful defence of the Premier League title.

The Stoke Potters have agreed to visit Brough Park on Thursday 19th September (7.30pm start) to solve a unique clash of dates caused by the North-East's richest greyhound race and a football match in the Ukraine. Newcastle have also agreed to squeeze their return visit to Stoke in the Premier League into Sunday 22nd September.

The Diamonds can't use their normal Monday night for home action on 16th September because the greyhound track at Brough Park needs to be set up by Sky Sports for their coverage the following evening of the Regal All England Cup final which is worth ?8,000 to the winner.

Newcastle officially have Wednesdays in reserve for home speedway meetings, but 18th September sees Newcastle United open their group fixtures in the Champions League with a trip to Dinamo Kiev that will be shown live on Tyne Tees television.

Co-promoter Darryl Illingworth says: "Switching to a Thursday is the best option for us and we hope as many of our fans as possible can make room in their diaries to support us on the 19th. We've already had two Monday nights in the last four weeks when we've raced at Brough Park and clashed with live TV coverage of Newcastle United games in the Premiership. Inevitably, our crowd drops if the Magpies are also playing and we can't afford to go head-to-head with them for a third time."

"Our last home match with Stoke in the cup quarter-final was the most controversial night at Brough Park for ages, featuring Stoke's Will Beveridge attacking Derek Sneddon and their captain Paul Pickering clattering Kenneth Bjerre into the fence, so I reckon we're going to spice up most people's usual Thursday night routine."

"No-one connected with Newcastle speedway can recall any Thursday nights being used before at Brough Park so it looks like we'll be creating a bit of history against the Potters. I must thank them for agreeing to this date, and our thanks also go to Sheffield who always have Thursday as their regular home night but who've agreed that we can share the 19th with their match at Owlerton against Glasgow."

Newcastle have given themselves a great chance of retaining the Premier League title after a fabulous 47-43 victory at Arena Essex last Friday. Although Newcastle are in 4th place they have at least one match in hand on all their rivals at the top of the table and they have completed all their matches against the championship contenders.

The Diamonds' next action is on Sunday (15th September) when Newcastle go to Newport for a double-header spread across two leagues. The action starts with the KBS Diamonds tackling the Wasps in the Premier League (although the Wasps will be without their captain Craig Watson who broke his wrist in a crash at Trelawny last night - Tuesday) followed by the Newcastle Gems facing the Newport Mavericks in the Conference League.

After the two matches with Stoke on the 19th and 22nd, the club are aiming to wrap up their Premier League fixtures with two re-arranged matches on successive nights. They are hoping to be at home to the Glasgow Tigers on Monday 23rd September (postponed last Monday because of a waterlogged track) although they are awaiting conformation that Glasgow can fit this date into their even bigger backlog of matches.

Newcastle then make the long journey to St Austell in Cornwall to meet the Trelawny Tigers on Tuesday 24th September (postponed on 2nd July by a waterlogged track).

Trying to re-arrange that home match against Glasgow has delayed Newcastle's home leg of the eagerly-awaited Knock Out Cup semi-final against the Sheffield Tigers. The trip to Sheffield will now be the first leg on Thursday 26th September and Brough Park becomes the venue for the second leg on Monday 30th September.

Darryl Illingworth says: "It's a very hectic schedule but we have to fit in as many matches as possible by the cut-off date on 23rd September for deciding the top eight teams in the Premier League for the Young Shield play-offs. Whoever's in the first place at the cut-off can choose their quarter-final opponent for those play-offs from the teams standing in fifth-to-eighth places. The second team gets the next choice and so on. It's an almighty scramble because teams like us want as wide a choice as possible while teams like Stoke are desperately trying to stay just inside the top eight to extend their season."

"We know our match at Newport will be a tricky one because they did us a huge favour last Saturday by salvaging a draw at home to Sheffield! It's a blow for them to have Craig Watson on the injured list but their other top Australian, Frank Smart, is a superb rider and I'm sure their whole team will put in a little extra effort to make up for Craig's absence."

"But don't forget our captain Andre Compton won the Welsh Open at Newport in June against a very high-quality field that included three Grand Prix stars and I'm also confident we have more strength in depth in our team and it's going to be an especially important match for us reserves Wayne Carter and Derek Sneddon. Derek was awesome at Arena Essex, scoring 11 paid 13."

"Looking ahead to that Thursday match at home to Stoke, we'd love a repeat of our 24-point victory at home to the Potters in the cup quarter-final but they've improved dramatically since then and they'd be delighted to throw a spanner in our title hopes. We need to build as big a lead as possible to make us favourites for the bonus point at Loomer Road the following Sunday."