My lovely friend Zoltan decided that for his birthday it would be a fun idea to watch through the Eurovision Song Contest from the year of his birth, 1975. A group of us watched together in his flat while others friends from around the UK and other parts of Europe had watched separately and recorded their scores to be played once we’d watched them all. Would this 21st century jury score very differently from the 1975 one…? 

We adopted the standard jury scoring system of awarding points 1 through to 8 and then 10 and 12. All the more apt we did it this way as 1975 was the very first year this famous and familiar douze points scoring system was used at Eurovision.

So, to remind you of how the result went back in 1975, the top 5 were:

1. The Netherlands – their fourth (and most recent) victory in the contest.
2. United Kingdom – finishing second for the 9th time
3. Italy
4. France
5. Luxembourg

After a fun rewatch (accompanied with pizza and booze), and taking in the scores from the jurors in the flat and playing the several videos of other friends with scores, the Canary Wharf and assorted international jury declared the winner was:

The Netherlands!

Once again, Teach-In were victorious – maybe not such a surprise but it was a clear winner for us.

In second place….. was Germany!

The late Joy Fleming (who sadly passed away in 2017) secured posthumous appreciation from us and well deserved I say, she is among my favourite German entries.

And in third place….it’s the United Kingdom.

Around half of this rewatch jury was from the UK which might have skewed the result a little, but as the UK finished 2nd in the actual contest, it doesn’t seem too inaccurate.

How different was our result from the actual result? Well, not that different actually! The big difference was Germany coming from near bottom in the actual contest to runner up with us. Otherwise, there is a lot of symmetry. The full results are below and the 1975 result is given in brackets.

1. The Netherlands (winner)
2. Germany (17th)
3. United Kingdom (2nd)
4. Italy (3rd)
5. Malta (12th)
6. France (4th)
7. Switzerland (6th)
8. Monaco (13th)
9. Sweden (8th)
10. Ireland (9th)
11. Israel (11th)
12. Luxembourg (5th)
13. Spain (10th)
14. Turkey (19th)
15. Portugal (16th)
16. Finland (7th)
17. Norway (18th)
18. Belgium (15th)
19. Yugoslavia (13th)

Full information about the results and other details of the 1975 contest can be found on the Wikipedia page.

And if you want to watch the full contest yourself, here it is!

And of course, do let me know if you have of your own favourites from back in 1975…