Eurovision 1970: Amsterdam

Four countries had won in 1969, and only one of them could host in 1970.

Britain and Spain ruled themselves out: they had staged the last two contests and did not want a third. That left France and the Netherlands. On 18 April 1969, at a meeting of the EBU in the Krasnapolsky Hotel in Amsterdam, lots were drawn. The Dutch won.

They put the show in the RAI congress centre in Amsterdam, a five-year-old hall with room for 1,500.

The boycott

Twelve countries turned up. It was the smallest field since 1959.

Finland, Norway, Portugal and Sweden all stayed at home. Their official reason was that the contest sidelined small countries and had stopped being good television. The rumour was that they were protesting against the four-way tie, and the voting system that had allowed it. Austria, which had already skipped Madrid, stayed away too.

For the first time, not one of the lead singers had been in the contest before. The only familiar faces were at the back: two members of the trio who had sung behind Massiel in 1968 returned as backing singers for Spain, whose singer this year was Julio Iglesias.

A rule for next time

The EBU wrote a tie-break. If two or more songs finished level in first place, each would be performed again. Then the juries of every country not involved would vote by a show of hands.

And if that was a tie as well, the rule gave up: they would share the win.

Filling the time

Twelve songs do not fill an evening. The Dutch producers had to pad, and the things they came up with are still in the show today.

They opened with a film of Amsterdam more than four minutes long. And before each song they played a short film of the performer, apparently at home in their own country — the first “postcards”.

Apparently, because the postcards for Switzerland, Luxembourg and Monaco were all shot in Paris, along with the French one.

The presenter did the opposite of padding. Willy Dobbe welcomed viewers in English, French and Dutch and was finished in 24 seconds — very likely one of the shortest introductions any host has given.

The set, by Roland de Groot, was simple: curved horizontal bars and silver baubles that could be rearranged into different shapes.

Dana

The voting had not changed, boycott or no boycott: ten jurors a country, one vote each.

Ireland sang last. Its singer was Dana, a little-known schoolgirl from Derry, and the song was “All Kinds of Everything”. She won with 32 votes. It was Ireland’s first victory. There would be six more — seven in all, a total no country has beaten.

The United Kingdom’s Mary Hopkin was second on 26 — the seventh time Britain had finished runner-up, which was a record of a different kind. Germany was third, its best result so far.

Three songs shared fourth place on eight votes, Julio Iglesias’s among them. And Luxembourg scored nothing, the only time it has.

There was one last trace of 1969. The trophy is handed over by the previous winner, and there were four to choose from. The Dutch one, Lenny Kuhr, did it.