Eurovision 1976: The Hague

Five Dutch cities wanted the 1976 contest. Enschede, the home town of the winners Teach-In, wanted it too, but had neither a hall nor enough hotel rooms.

The Hague got it, for a practical reason. Its congress centre stood on its own, with two large hotels close by, and that made it the easiest place to guard. Israel was taking part, and strict security came with it.

The presenter had been here before in another role. Corry Brokken won the contest for the Netherlands in 1957.

Who stayed away

Sweden. The hosts of 1975 did not enter. Swedish television had no money to stage another contest if it won again, and there had been public demonstrations against the last one. Its withdrawal pushed the EBU into making every participating broadcaster pay a fee towards the cost of the show.

Malta. The new fees were too much for a broadcaster with a very small budget. Malta did not come back until 1991.

Turkey. That was about a song.

Austria and Greece returned, making eighteen. Liechtenstein tried to enter and was refused: it had no broadcaster in the EBU.

The Greek song

Greece had stayed away in 1975 because of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. In 1976 it came back with a song about it, sung by Mariza Koch. This time it was Turkey that withdrew.

There were threats that armed men would be in the hall and would shoot her on stage. The organisers told Koch they could not be responsible for her safety. She signed a waiver accepting that she sang at her own risk, and it was rumoured that she wore a bulletproof vest when she did.

She sang tenth, and finished thirteenth.

Postcards, done properly this time

As in Amsterdam six years earlier, each song was introduced by a film of the artist at home. In 1970 several of those had been faked in Paris. This time the Dutch sent their own crew to all eighteen countries.

The singers for Monaco and Luxembourg were filmed in Monaco and Luxembourg, although neither came from there.

The logo was borrowed from 1970 too, recoloured in black — one of the very few times the contest has used the same one twice.

The interval

The Dutch Swing College Band played live, and the cameras kept cutting away to the green room, where Hans van Willigenburg asked five of the singers who they thought was going to win.

Four hedged. France’s Catherine Ferry answered: the United Kingdom.

The result

She was right, and she was the one it cost. Brotherhood of Man won for the United Kingdom with “Save Your Kisses for Me” on 164 points, and Ferry finished second on 147. For the second year running, the winner was the song that had opened the show.

It was a crushing win. The song took just over 80 per cent of the points it could possibly have been given, an average of 9.65 out of 12 from every jury — still the record under the twelve-point system. It went on to become the biggest-selling winning single the contest has had.

It was Britain’s third victory. Monaco was third and Switzerland fourth.

Four points that went missing

When France read out its votes, its spokesperson left out the four points it had given Yugoslavia. The scrutineer did not notice.

On the night, then, Yugoslavia finished last with six points and Norway second from last. After the broadcast the scores were checked and corrected. Yugoslavia went up to ten, and Norway’s Anne-Karine Strøm, in her third contest, became the official last-placed act after the fact.