It's now been over 40 years since one iconic UK Eurovision entrant went on to bring home the title.
When you think of standout songs and performances from the Eurovision Song Contest - Bucks Fizz is bound to spring to mind. In 1981, the band, consisting of members Mike Nolan, Bobby G, Cheryl Baker and Jay Aston, wowed international audiences with Making Your Mind Up and found themselves a permanent place in the Eurovision hall of fame.
Perhaps one of the most remembered and catchy songs for Eurovision fans, their colourful routine and the iconic skirt reveal secured a fourth win for the UK, with the Making Your Mind Up going on to reach No1 in the UK and sell over four million copies. The competition that year took place in Dublin and as a result the following year the contest was held at Harrogate International Centre in Harrogate.
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The band would go on to achieve hits across the globe with songs like The Land Of Make Believe and My Camera Never Lies. In 2004, three of the original members Cheryl, Mike and Jay formed spin-off group The Fizz and continue to perform and tour today.
Cheryl said she "always" watched Eurovision growing up, but many will know her love for the competition and her Eurovision roots run deeper. Cheryl told the ECHO: "It was so big back then, it was so massive that the newspapers used to be full of it.
"The front page, you'd have a picture of the UK entry and usually in the inside pages you would have like what they do for the Grand National, all the runners and riders and you can pick which one you wanted to win, it did that. So you could watch the Eurovision and have your own newspaper scorecard and make your own comments and make your own marks.
"It was huge and everybody did it. Actually, I think it’s much bigger now - but because television was so limited, it was a musical thing to look forward to every year."
Not every Eurovision contestant gets another opportunity to represent their country and go on to win the competition. But years ago, Cheryl became one of a few artists to take part in Eurovision and come out victorious on their second attempt.
In 1976, artists competed in A Song For Europe, a televised preselection to choose the song that would represent the UK in Eurovision that year. As part of band Co-Co, Cheryl came runner up by two points to Brotherhood of Mann, who went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest that year.
Two years later, Co-Co won A Song For Europe with The Bad Old Days. Representing the UK in Paris for the 1978 song contest, Co-Co placed eleventh overall, which at the time was the worst showing so far for a UK entry.
Cheryl said: "I thought that was going to be my only toe in the water of Eurovision and of course it wasn't. Three years later I'd left Co-Co, I was working in a recording studio doing all their secretarial stuff because that’s what I trained to do at school and signing backing vocals for people.
"The woman who put Bucks Fizz together came in and saw me and said Cheryl, you left Co-Co, do you want to be in this band I've put together called Bucks Fizz, so I fell into being available to join Bucks Fizz because I was working in the right place at the right time when Nichola Martin came in and put the group together. I was very very lucky."
The band met for the first time in January 11, 1981 and exactly two months later did A Song For Europe. Cheryl said it was " a crazy, busy" time for the band who were constantly recording and rehearsing.
Cheryl said: "It was non-stop, there wasn’t a minute we had to ourselves - but it paid off because without all the rehearsals all sorts could have happened. If the skirts hadn't have come off when they did it would have been the end of it, it wouldn't have won. I look back with pride, I think it’s a faultless performance."
The band's Eurovision experience was different to fellow contestants that year. Bucks Fizz and their contingent stayed in a hotel away from all of the other contestants and needed protection because of IRA threats.
Cheryl said: "It was a scary time as well as it being an exciting time, but when you're young you don't taste the fear you just taste the excitement. Because we were separate from all the others, we’d go in our own coach when everyone was mixing together and socialising and we couldn't do that.
"But as far as the Eurovision was concerned, it was amazing, it was wonderful. It's a time that changed my life - I cant talk about it with enough superlatives. It was just the most amazing thing that happened to me.
"If you watch our performance, we start singing and we do the first verse and then Mike Nolan looks over to me and goes ‘here we go’ and that was the moment for me when my nerves kind of left and I thought I'm going to enjoy this. He still does it, when we’re on stage singing Making Your Mind Up.
"Winning the Eurovision in '81 was the most fantastic feeling because prior to that I'd lost with Co-Co. It was amazing, it changed my life and I adored Eurovision before but obviously by winning it - it became the hero of my life."
Surrounded by photographers when Bucks Fizz came off stage, Cheryl said at the first opportunity she headed to her hotel room to call home and heard the Bethnal Green block of flats she was born in in London had been celebrating her success. In the days before social media, Cheryl, like many former contestants has seen Eurovision grow and said Sam Ryder's success in last year's competition has "changed the face of Eurovision in the UK."
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Cheryl said: "It's a huge platform, it’s the biggest musical platform in the world. There's no bigger event musically than the Eurovision Song Contest. I expect that in years to come it will be even more international than it is now.
"I've heard all the songs now and I think Mae Muller stands a really really good chance. It's in the vein of today’s kind of European music, I think it’s going to appeal to a lot of Europe.
"The host country usually does very well so she should be top five this year which I think would be fantastic. I think Mae is great, she’s going to do a great performance."
As we know, Liverpool his hosting Eurovision this year on behalf of Ukraine and Cheryl will be in the city with The Fizz for the occasion. Cheryl said: "As soon as I knew it was Liverpool I booked my air BnB, I thought I'm going to be up there.
"All the family and friends, we can't wait and we’ve booked this huge property that we’re all going to share that’s about a three minute walk from the arena. I think it's great that it’s come to Liverpool.
"I thought possibly it was gong to go to Cardiff because it's been in Scotland, it’s been in England before and never to Wales. But Liverpool, it’s the home of music isn’t it so I think it’s only right and proper that it goes there.
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"I think it’s going to be an amazing event, amazing for liverpool. Liverpool is going to have so much tourism and Mike, Jay and I are going to be up there for most for the week because everyone wants a little slice of you. It’s going to be great."
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