Eurovision is Creeping Closer
With Your Country Needs You, the contest in which 6 musical acts will compete to represent the UK at this year’s Eurovision, airing tomorrow night, we are painfully reminded that it is almost that time again. The UK first took part Eurovision in 1957, in the second song contest. Up to and including 1998, the UK had always placed somewhere in the top ten of the competition. Since then, however, the UK’s performance has been embarrassingly poor, placing last for the first time in 2003 and then again in 2008. The only redeeming acts have been Jessica Garlick in 2002 and Jade Ewen in 2009, who both managed to place in the top ten, Jade Ewen in particular receiving praise for stemming the run of poor results the UK has received for most of the decade.
If we’re being optimistic, though, the UK has actually won the competition a total of five times, and has come second fifteen times. We have also hosted the competition more time than any other country, having held 8 of the contests here at home. According to Paddy Power, the odds of the UK winning Eurovision this year are at 20/1. The odds of us placing last, in a repeat of 2003 and 2008, are at 25/1. Boyle Sports cites Norway as the favourite to win this year, having won last year with Alexander Rybak’s performance of the song Fairytale. They have also won twice before, with Secret Garden in 1995 and Bobbysocks a decade earlier in 1985.
Second favourite in the stakes offered by Boyle Sports is Russia, who won in 2008 with Dima Bilan, at 8/1. Sweden is next with odds of 10/1, having won four times in the past, most notably with ABBA in 1974. Norway is not only the favourite to win, but in accordance with odds offered by Bet Fair is also almost certain to finish in the top ten, with odds of 3/100, and beating that also in the top four at 123/100. The UK is trailing at the bottom of all the odds, and the likelihood seems to be that whoever succeeds in winning a place at Eurovision tomorrow night will not bring back the UK’s glory days, which last happened when we won in 1997 with Katrina and the Waves.
All odds correct at time of writing and are subject to change
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