20 years ago today, Katrina and the Waves did the unthinkable and grabbed glory for the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest.
With their foot-stamping crowd-pleaser ‘Love Shine A Light’, Katrina and her bandmates secured a resounding 227 points during the ceremony in Dublin, beating runner-up Ireland by 70 points, with the highest ever score up to that time.
Katrina was the most recent UK winner, but was she the best? Ahead of next week’s contest in the Ukraine, where we’ll be represented by a game Lucie Jones, we count down our top 10 UK entries of all time…
10. Samantha Janus - A Message To Your Heart (1991)
A pretty girl, an uplifting message, a pounding chorus - what could go wrong? Not much - she came an unembarrassing 10th, with 47 points.
9. Gina G - Ooh Ah… Just a Little Bit (1996)
We’re suckers for dots in a song title here at HuffPostUK, and if she sounded as though someone had put a 33” on a 45” speed on the turnstyle by mistake, what of it? 8th position - 77 points.
8. Scott Fitzgerald - Go (1988)
Who, we hear you cry? The man who could have, perhaps should have won and the sleeves were certainly rolled up for victory with this mournful ballad, but Scott learned on that evening what many Las Vegas residency wannabes, Oscar contenders, Grammy aspirants have since learned... nobody comes between a certain French-Canadian chanteuse and her crown. He lost by one point to Ms Dion, having amassed 137.
7. Lulu - Boom Bang-a-Bang (1969)
Lulu said afterwards she didn’t much care for her winning song, but the powers of Eurovision disagreed. Victory was assured, with a resounding... 18 points (it was a tie that year between three countries).
6. Blue - I Can (2011)
Ok, so it didn’t win every juror’s heart, but they were the People’s Winners, coming 11th with a sound 100 points. One of the favourites going in, mocked by Brits, embraced by Bulgarians, it was but another chapter in Blue’s never-say-die odyssey.
5. Bardo - One Step further (1982)
Faced with the difficult task of walking in Bucks Fizz’s foosteps, this game pair made a more than decent stab with this chart-friendly number. At the time, 7th with 76 points. Now, back in people’s hearts, courtesy of Peter Kay’s Forever FM.
4. Sandie Shaw - Puppet on a String (1967)
Barefoot, beaming and beautiful. First place with 47 points. Number one in the uK charts, too. Not bad for a song she considered her least favourite of the 5 songs offered her to compete with.
3. Katrina and the Waves - Love Shine A Light (1997)
Frontwoman Katrina Leskanich later revealed that it was members of the Samaritans who opined that this was “the type of song which would win the Eurovision Song Contest and [so] at the last minute, we submitted the song with our £250 [entrance fee].” 20 years later, it remains our most impressive points tally ever.
2. Brotherhood Of Man - Save All Your Kisses For Me (1976)
First place and 164 points for the quartet, with a song that went on to be a hit all over the world, and the UK’s biggest seller of the year. Not bad for a song that almost didn’t make it to the band’s album on its first listen.
1. Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up (1981)
Bucks Fizz’s very first single, the group having been formed only two months earlier. From 2004 to 2007 the BBC used the name Making Your Mind Up for their Eurovision Selection Show in honour of the song which had everything - pretty faces, smiles, skirts, no skirts, dances and finger-wagging. How could they resist? 136 points was a conservative result.
This year’s Eurovision Song Contest takes place next with semi-finals on Tuesday 9 and Thursday 11, and the final on Saturday 13 May. Coverage will be on BBC Three for the semi-finals and on BBC One for the final.