This Sunday, 30 January, the latest in a very long line of Dutch national song contests will be hosted by public broadcaster TROS to choose the song - penned and performed by band the 3JS - for this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Germany.

An appropriate moment, perchance, to look back again at the Netherlands' history of highs and lows at this, the world's biggest television music spectacular?

As was also the case with the beginnings of what is now the European Union, the Netherlands was one of the trailblazers of the Eurovision Song Contest. In fact, this small country on the shores of the North Sea provided the very first song to be performed at the very first song contest. 

That song - entitled De Vogels van Holland (The Birds of Holland) - was performed at the first contest in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1956.

The singer was Jetty Paerl who, in the early 1940s, had sung across the airwaves from Radio Orange (a forerunner of Radio Netherlands Worldwide) in London to bring hope and courage to her fellow countrymen and women living under Nazi occupation in the Netherlands of World War II. In hindsight, therefore, her role as the first contestant in this new European song contest appears to take on a new and optimistic meaning.

Victory
There was no Dutch victory in the first contest, but that changed in 1957 when young Corry Brokken went to 'far off' Frankfurt and sang her song Net als toen (Just like then) to first place. She took 31 points, leaving France (second) trailing with a mere 17.

A year later, 1958, and the contest came to the Netherlands, where it was hosted by the NTS in Hilversum (Wikipedia page), the home town of Radio Netherlands Worldwide (then just 11 years old) and of Dutch broadcasting in general. Corry Brokken (photo) again took part in the show - broadcast on a Wednesday evening in March - competing for the Netherlands against nine other countries, but this time she came no further than a shared last - 9th - place with Luxembourg. Corry returned to the contest in 1976 when she hosted the show in The Hague.  

Making history
In 1959, The Netherlands made Eurovision history by becoming the first country to win the contest twice. The late Teddy Scholten - who  went on to host programmes for RNW - and her song Een Beetje (A little bit) defeated the competition from ten other countries. When Teddy later returned to Amsterdam by plane after the show she was greeted as a national hero by the large crowd that gathered there to meet her.

A Teddy in the hand...
Strangely, 1959 was the contest of two 'Teddies', with second place going to Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson (a man), who represented the United Kingdom.

There was little success for the Netherlands in the years that followed, and several contests in which it gained no points whatsoever, although this befell a number of countries and was a more regular occurence at the time as a result of the various voting systems used in the 1960s.

Logo for the 1970 contest in Amsterdam

Four-way tie
The Netherlands' third victory came in 1969, but was shared with three other countries. Young Dutch singer Lenny Kuhr and her song De Troubadour received a total of 18 points as did Lulu (UK), Salome (Spain) and Frida Bocarra (France). Victory was split four ways, but the Netherlands gained the honour of hosting the first contest of the 1970s.

The song contest of 1970 in Amsterdam is still regarded by many fans as one that helped rejuvenate the contest. Dutch public broadcaster NOS (Wikipedia page) gave the show an ultramodern decor - which could change shape between songs - and introduced the idea of video 'postcards', shot in the performer's home country, to introduce the singers and songs to the viewing public.

Although the number of countries taking part dropped for the first time following what a number of - mainly Scandinavian - broadcasters regarded as the chaos of the shared victory the year before, some fans believe the Amsterdam contest helped save the event from an early death.

Last victory
Following good results in 1972 (fourth) and 1974 (third), the Netherlands won the contest for the fourth and - to date - last time in 1975 with the song Ding A Dong (Dutch Dinge Dong), performed by the group Teach-In. Long regarded by many as one of the worst winners of the Eurovision, this song has now become something of a classic. In the Netherlands it has also become symbolic of the long absence of any further victories in the contest. 

For the Netherlands it has proved difficult since 1975 to even manage a place among the top five songs. This has, in fact, only happened in 1980 (5th place) and in 1987 (again 5th) and finally in 1998 (4th). In the same period, there were also some notably low scores, including the years 1982 (16th out of 18 countries), 1994 (23rd out of 25) and 1997 (22nd out of 25).

Edsilia singing at RNW's 60th birthday

Language choice
Furthermore, on only one occasion since the introduction of the semi-final in 2004 has the Netherlands managed to reach the final. That happened in 2004 when the country was represented by male duo Reunion. 

The year 2006 proved disastrous for the Netherlands when female trio Treble came 22nd out of 24 entrants in the semi-final: in relative terms, possibly the worst result ever for the Netherlands when one takes into account the fact that a total of 37 countries took part that year. 

1998 was the last truly successful year for the Dutch, and their representative then - with the song Hemel en Aarde (Heaven and Earth) - was Edsilia Rombley. The BBC's famous Eurovision commentator Terry Wogan said on the evening that Edsilia was probably the best singer in the show, and her song was strong too. Her song also happened to be the last one performed in Dutch for the Netherlands prior to the 2010 entry.

Ultimately, however, it was Dana International of Israel who took first place. Edsilia ended fourth behind Israel, the UK (2nd) and Malta (3rd).

Flagging not flag waving
Edsilia performed again for the Netherlands at the 2007 contest, but her song failed to make it through to the final. The same fate befell Hind (2008), the Toppers (2009) and also Sieneke (2010), who was the first person to perform an Eurovision entry in Dutch for the Netherlands since Edsilia back in 1998. The Netherlands therefore has one of the worst records at the contest over the past eight years.

This year the 3JS will also be singing in Dutch, but their song will be self-penned. Win or lose in Germany, it looks - by the standards set by the 3JS in their career so far - that their song will in any event be 'from the heart' and a quality product to boot!

You can follow the contest live on Sunday evening (31 January) via the TROS website.  

 (/imm)