Anticipation is building for the hugely-popular Eurovision Song Contest ahead of the annual event later this month.

This year's contest takes place in Liverpool on 13th May with the UK stepping in as the host nation after last year's winners, Ukraine, were unable to stage the event.

Eurovision is the longest-running yearly international televised music competition, having first taken place in 1956. It has been staged annually ever since, apart from in 2020, and is organised by the European Broadcasting Union.

Each country taking part must enter an original song which is performed on the night in front of a live audience - which this year will be at the Liverpool Arena - and then the competing countries cast votes for the other countries' songs to eventually work out a winner.

The rival nations award points for each song - ranging from one to 12 points - to their 10 favourite songs, using the views of expert music professionals alongside votes from each country's viewing public.

The competition is mostly made up of European countries but Australia were invited for the 60th anniversary in 2015 and have been part of the contest ever since.

There have been numerous memorable winners, with the UK triumphing on five occasions down the years. Ireland lead the way overall with seven victories and plenty of famous acts have taken part and won - including ABBA, Buck's Fizz and Celine Dion.

Here, broken down into decades, we run down the complete list of previous Eurovision winners from 1970 onwards.

The 1970s

Ireland won for the first time in 1970 in Amsterdam when Dana's 'All Kind's Of Everything' was voted best song.

The UK triumphed in 1976 for the third time with Brotherhood Of Man's 'Save Your Kisses For Me', while Monaco, Luxembourg and Israel (both twice) also enjoyed success in the 70s.

The 1974 contest was won by Swedish superstars ABBA, who performed 'Waterloo' in Brighton.

The 1980s

Ireland again got the decade off to a winning start when 'What's Another Year' by Johnny Logan came out on top.

Bucks Fizz’s 'Making Your Mind Up' took first prize a year later in 1981, and Logan was back for more glory in 1987 when he sung 'Hold Me Now'.

The 1990s

The 90s was the decade in which Ireland dominated the contest with no less than four victories. Linda Martin's 'Why Me' triumphed in 1992, before Niamh Kavanagh's 'In Your Eyes' won a year later and Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan made it an Irish hat-trick in 1994 with 'Rock 'n' Roll Kids'.

Ireland's fourth success came in 1996 when Eimear Quinn's 'The Voice' was voted the winner, and in 1997 Katrina and the Waves' 'Love Shine A Light' won the competition for the UK.

The 2000s

The 2000s saw 10 different countries winning across the first decade of the millennium, including Denmark, Latvia, Turkey, Greece and Ukraine.

The 2009 victor, 'Fairytale', performed by Alexander Rybak, who was representing Norway, won with what was at the time the highest recorded score since the contest began, picking up 387 points out of a possible maximum 492.

The 2010s

Germany won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2010 for the second time when Lena's effort 'Satellite' picked up the most votes, with Sweden winning twice during this decade, triumphing in 2012 and 2015.

Portugal's sole success in the competition came in 2017 when Salvador Sobral performed 'Amar pelos dois' in Kyiv.

The 2020s

With no competition taking place in 2020, the 2021 version was won by Italy and Maneskin, who collected the most votes for their song 'Zitti e buoni'.

Ukrainian rap group Kalush Orchestra took the prize 12 months ago when they sung 'Stefania' in Turin.

bet365 News Team

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