The dreaded Nul Points...

Part of the Eurovision legend is of course the risk of scoring zero in the final, getting a place in the history books as being the song nobody liked even a little bit.

Nul points. No points.

To be fair, only nul-pointers from 1975 and on count - before that, the system of points varied a lot. Some years it was extemely easy to be left with nothing, while some years it was impossible.

Most countries up until 1971 saw each country having a jury of ten members, each one giving one point only to their favourite song. If you were everybody's second fave, you would score zero. A very hard world. Especially 1962 - 1965, where four countries per year were mercilessly left without points.

1971 - 1973 saw a different system, where the lowest score possible was two points per country judging you, created to ensure that nobody was left with no points. However, this system was hard to follow (and generated a fair share of tactical voting), so it was scrapped too.

From 1975 and on the system has remained unchanged - every country awards points to their top ten countries, and this is where it gets interesting. This system was, partially, introduced to spare countries from the shame of not scoring.

It worked so-so in all fairness.

But it certainly added to the entertainment value. Some years it was more exciting to see who would score a big fat zero than who would win. Since 1975, a total of fourteen songs had the misfortune of being left without points in a eurovision final.

I'm about to go through them and judge them - did they deserve their fate? (Spolier alert: a few of them truly did.)