Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest 1969
| Eurovision Song Contest 1969 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country |
 Netherlands | |||
| National selection | ||||
| Selection process | Nationaal Songfestival 1969 | |||
| Selection date(s) | 26 February 1969 | |||
| Selected entrant | Lenny Kuhr | |||
| Selected song | "De troubadour" | |||
| Finals performance | ||||
| Final result | 1st=, 18 points | |||
| Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest | ||||
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The Netherlands was represented by Lenny Kuhr, with the song '"De troubadour", at the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest, which took place in Madrid on 29 March. "De troubadour" was the winner of the Dutch national final for the contest, held on 26 February, and went on to become one of the winners in the infamous four-way tie which ended the 1969 contest.
Final
The national final was held at the Circustheater in Scheveningen, hosted by Pim Jacobs. Ten songs took part and the winning song was chosen by a national and an international jury. It is not known precisely what was meant by "international", but information from other Dutch selections with an "international" element suggests it is most likely to have been ambassadorial staff from other nations based in the Netherlands. "De troubadour" emerged the narrow winner by a 1-point margin. Former Dutch representative Anneke Grönloh (1964) was among the participants.[1]
| Draw | Artist | Song | Points | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Annet Hesterman | "Zoek het niet te fer" | 2 | 4 |
| 2 | John Lamers | "Als een donderslag" | 0 | 8= |
| 3 | Lenny Kuhr | "De troubadour" | 7 | 1 |
| 4 | Anneke Grönloh | "Heartbeat" | 1 | 5= |
| 5 | Frankie Luyten | "Haat me niet" | 0 | 8= |
| 6 | Patricia Paay | "Jij alleen" | 1 | 5= |
| 7 | Rob de Nijs | "Zaterdagavondshow" | 0 | 8= |
| 8 | Linda Ross | "Goodbye My Love" | 1 | 5= |
| 9 | Dave | "Niets gaat zo snel" | 3 | 3 |
| 10 | Conny Vink | "De toeteraar" | 6 | 2 |
At Eurovision
On the night of the final Kuhr performed 8th in the running order, following the United Kingdom and preceding Sweden. At the close of voting "De troubadour" had received 18 points, making the Netherlands joint winners of the contest along with France, Spain and the United Kingdom, as there was no mechanism in place at the time to determine an outright winner if more than one country tied for first place on the scoreboard. The Netherlands had not appeared to be in serious contention until France, voting third from last, awarded 6 of its 10 points to "De troubadour". This was the Netherlands' third Eurovision victory and brought to an end a dreadful run in which the country had failed to place higher than 10th since 1959.[2]
The Netherlands later won the right to host the 1970 contest after lots were drawn by the four winning nations.
Voting
Every country had a jury of ten people. Every jury member could give one point to his or her favourite song.
Points awarded to the Netherlands
| Points awarded to the Netherlands | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 points | 9 points | 8 points | 7 points | 6 points |
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| 5 points | 4 points | 3 points | 2 points | 1 point |
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Points awarded by the Netherlands
| 2 points |  France Monaco |
| 1 point | .svg.png){kind=small} Belgium Finland Ireland Luxembourg Sweden United Kingdom |