Eastbourne Eagles stormed to the Elite League title on a wave of emotion at Arlington Stadium on Saturday night.

The Sussex squad lifted the crown for the first time, and a major league championship for only the second time in their history, when they beat King's Lynn on a night of drama and high tension.

Eagles, who went into the last-match title shoot-out without skipper Martin Dugard and Stefan Danno and with Dean Barker riding through the pain barrier, won a nerve-jangling affair.

And when Joe Screen made sure the first championship of the 21st century was coming to Arlington, one of the biggest crowds to watch speedway at the Sussex track erupted.

Screen, a big-money capture at the start of the season, justified the club's investment with another superlative display ending with a spectacular win over the league's top two riders, Leigh Adams and Jason Crump.

Team-mates raced on to the track to haul Screen from his machine and hurl him into the air to celebrate a victory which had looked increasingly unlikely as the events of the last two weeks had unfolded.

First Dugard had sustained a broken collar-bone and three fractured ribs riding for England, then Danno was banned after failing a breath test before the European Grand Prix.

King's Lynn, meanwhile, were on a roll, winning their last five away matches, including a 49-41 win at Poole the previous night to set up the Arlington decider.

But if Screen emerged as the man of the moment when he beat Adams by inches in a photo-finish to heat 13, then arguably the Eastbourne hero was David Norris.

Stand-in skipper Norris top scored for the third successive match and tore the heart out of King's Lynn's challenge with a sensational ride in the previous race.

Throwing in Crump as a golden tactical substitute, starting 15m back with double points to count, was virtually the last throw of the dice for the visitors.

A Crump win, with team-mate Craig Boyce second, would have given King's Lynn an 8-1 heat advantage and slashed Eastbourne's lead to five points with three races left.

Norris, however, came from third to first, roaring round the outside of Boyce on the last lap and then holding off Crump in the race to the line.

Earlier, Norris had teamed up with Paul Hurry to defeat Crump and inflict the first defeat in 19 league races on the world No.4.

It was a night when Eastbourne's magnificent seven all played a significant part, and despite all the nailbiting, the truth is that Eagles won with a little bit in hand.

They led by four points after two races, six after three, eight after five, were ten points up with ten heats gone and 12 after the next.

King's Lynn, who had overturned an eight-point deficit at Poole the night before, clearly fancied their chances, but Eagles found vital chinks in the Knights' armour.

They were effectively a three-man opposition, and hard as Adams, Crump and Boyce tried the odds were always against them while Eagles did not make any mistakes.

Crump protested over his exclusion from heat 11, when Screen came down, but TV replays showed that referee Chris Gay, who had several difficult decisions to make during the meeting, got it right on every occasion.

King's Lynn probably blew their best chance when they by-passed the chance of playing their trump card and going for an 8-1 in heat eight, and they must now rue the day when they dispensed with the services of Arlington track specialist Shane Parker.

But that is to take nothing away from Eastbourne, who over the season have proved they are the No.1 team in the sport.

Eastbourne: David Norris 11, Joe Screen 11, Scott Nicholls 9, Paul Hurry 6, Savalas Clouting 5, Dean Barker 4, Petri Kokko 4.

King's Lynn: Leigh Adams 17, Jason Crump 9, Craig Boyce 9, John Cook 4, Steve Masters 2, Tom Madsen 1, Travis McGowan 0.