Eurovision: 1976 Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Netherlands

The Netherlands had had the winning entry, "Ding-A-Dong", in the previous year's contest. Normally a winning country hosts the following year's contest, although there have been instances where a different country has hosted the event.

Answer: United Kingdom

The United Kingdom won with "Save Your Kisses for Me", sung by Brotherhood of Man. The song was written by Tony Hiller, Lee Sheridan and Martin Lee. Sheridan and Lee were members of "Brotherhood of Man".

Answer: Brotherhood of Man

The "Brotherhood of Man" had a hit with "United We Stand" back in 1970, and after their Eurovision win they charted two more number one hits, "Angelo" in July 1977 and "Figaro" in January 1978. By mid-78 they were reduced to playing holiday camps and cabarets.

Answer: Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein would have had Biggi Bachmann sing "Little Cowboy" - but in order to be part of the contest, there is one very important consideration. Eurovision is, after all, a television broadcaster. Poor little Liechtenstein didn't have any in-country broadcasting service (that presumably could purchase Eurovision programming) so they were denied entry to the competition. Again.

Answer: 7

They were

United Kingdom - "Save Your Kisses for Me"
Switzerland - "Djambo, Djambo"
Ireland - "When"
The Netherlands - "The Party's Over"
Norway - "Mata Hari"
Finland - "Pump-Pump"
Austria - "My Little World".

Italy's entry, "We'll Live It All Again", was sung in both English and Italian.

Answer: Sweden and Malta

Sweden's broadcaster, Sveriges Radio, pleaded poverty - it costs a lot to put on one of these contests, and had they won, they wouldn't have been able to afford the next year's extravaganza. The result of this was a new rule, that in future the cost of staging it would be shared by all competing countries.

Malta didn't give any reason for their withdrawal. Their entry would have been "Sing Your Song, Country Boy" by Enzo Guzman.

Answer: Turkey

Greece's entry was a song about the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, "Panayia Mou, Panayia Mou" ("My Lady, My Lady"). The song is about the performer singing to the Virgin Mary about the desecration of Cyprus resulting from the Turkish invasion. The Turks didn't take very kindly to that and withdrew from competition. For those not familiar with the whole Eurovision contest hoopla, each country has a competition for its song, and the whole internal competition is normally broadcast widely.

As airwaves don't stop at national borders, it would be easy for Turkey to be familiar with the Greek entry long before the actual Eurovision contest.

Answer: Corry Brokken

Brokken won the 1957 Eurovision competition for The Netherlands, singing "Net als toen" ("Like it used to be"). She also competed in the 1956 and 1958 competitions. This was the first time a prior winner hosted the event.

Harry van Hoof was the conductor, Theo Ordeman was the director, and I made up Sven.

Answer: the Dutch Swing College Band

The Dutch Swing College Band is a dixieland jazz group, founded in 1945. Amazingly, the group is still in existance, although with entirely different personnel.

Han van Meegeren is a famous art forger. Golden Earring is a rock band best known for its hit "Radar Love". George Baker (born Johannes Bouwens) is famous for the rather annoying song, "Paloma Blanca" which charted in a number of countries in 1975.

Answer: 0

Unusually, there were no ties. Of a total 1044 points, Britain won with 164 and Norway bottomed out with 7 (3 points from The Netherlands and 4 from Portugal).