The Magpies snoozed in the sun for 35 minutes on Saturday afternoon, allowing the Hammers to race into a two goal lead before we'd crossed over the halfway line.

However, Kevin Keegan's side recovered sufficiently before half time to level the match and do enough to extend their unbeaten run to seven and make it nine games since we last lost to the claret & blues.

The injury that put Abdoulaye Faye's appearance against the mackems in doubt saw the Senegal defender miss out at the Boleyn Ground, with David Edgar stepping up from the bench in preference to Lamine Diatta.

The Canadian international was a bystander though when his side fell behind on ten minutes and struggling again midway through the first half when Ashton doubled West Ham's lead.

While the defender paid the price for some indecision on what was only the fifth senior start of his career, a generally sluggish display by his colleagues up until that point was being punished.

Harper's wayward kicking was matched by Barton's inability to get into the game and also Geremi's lack of cover in front of Habib Beye on the right.

The latter had been picked up by the home side, who funnelled attacks down that side of the field and had squandered a couple of chances before taking the lead.

Although Ljungberg departed on a stretcher with a broken rib after a clash with Taylor, that made little difference to the one-way traffic towards Harper's goal.

Rather than try to build on their lead however, Curbishley's side sat back and were to be punished.

Michael Owen's first meaningful act was to get to the front post on 36 minutes, only for James Tomkins to block his goal-bound header. However just six minutes later the same defender was unable to prevent Oba from netting his ninth Premier League goal of the season. 

And scarcely had the away section calmed down than they were celebrating again, Geremi scoring his second goal in successive capital city outings for us.

The second half lapsed into the sort of season-ending stalemate that had been half-expected, with both sides cancelling each other out.

Penalty shouts at each end of the field were rightly ignored by the irritating but mostly competent Uriah Rennie, while West Ham had more goal efforts but of the mostly high and wide variety.

Harper made one fine save to tip over Ashton's fierce rising shot as the game entered the closing stages, while at the other end Green was equal to Oba's shot after he wriggled past two opponents.

Injury had deprived the Hammers of the services of a trio of ex-Newcastle players (Bellamy, Bowyer and Dyer), with the latter being singled out for some abuse by sections of the travelling support.

Scott Parker though did play the full game and seemed anxious to get one over on his former employers, with a couple of over-zealous challenges and some of the tail -chasing meandering that frustrated his former fans.  

The final seconds of the game then saw Nolberto Solano appear from the bench to great applause from Toon fans, who had sung his name at various times during the day.

David Edgar meanwhile had recovered from his indifferent start to make some morale-boosting interventions, before leaving the field near the end to with a head wound that required eight stitches.

Attention now switches to the next games for both sides, with the Hammers travelling to Old Trafford for a Saturday lunchtime kickoff, before title rivals Chelsea come to SJP for Bank Holiday Monday afternoon's match.