Morten Thomassen wrote over the 1988 Eurovision and a very tight finish. ESC Covers google translated it from Norwegian to English.

Some years we get a real shock from a vote and things slow down a bit when the ending is a bit surprising.

Back in the good old year of 1988, our British friends led when a jury was left with five small points.

The last country to vote, Yugoslavia, gave Celine Dion 6 points and she thus went up in the lead, but her entire facial expression says that she considered the battle lost.

With neither 7, 8 or 10 points awarded to Great Britain everyone assumed they would sail to victory with the final 12s awarded of the evening.

However, it didn’t work out that way, it went to France and an almost fainted Celine Dion could cheer for her victory.

Thus it was not a “Go” to the victory ceremony for Scott Fitzgerald and he ended up in what must have been a particularly sour second place for him.

Down to Denmark in third place, it was a whopping 44 points, so there was very little doubt about who was fighting for victory this year.

I think I remember reading somewhere that in the Portuguese jury that gave Switzerland 12, there were three songs that ended up in first place after the first voting round with them, there had to be a re-voting and if one jury member had a favorite other than Switzerland, they would have ” only” got 10 points from Portugal and the victory had been lost.

Scott Fitzgerald, whose real name is William McPhail, has been active as an artist since 1970, but has probably only had one hit apart from his ESC song and it was called “If I Had Words”, was a duet with Yvonne Keeley and came out in 1978.

He has been in musicals and if I remember correctly he entertained on the Danish boat in his time, something you have to make money from.

Otherwise, I read that his son helped write the Finnish entry in 2018 “Monster”, so maybe someone in the family will avenge the embarrassing loss in 2023?