As much as the UK loves Eurovision, it does not always love us...which we know all too well from spending year after year at the bottom of the leaderboard.

This year's hopes are pinned firmly on It's A Sin actor and Years and Years singer Olly Alexander.

Olly, 33, will be performing his song 'Dizzy' to millions of people across Europe in Malmö in Saturday night's final.

The annual singing competition is well known for its complex voting system and for its fun and flamboyance. 

The now highly-anticipated calendar event was first held on May 24, 1956, in Lugano, Switzerland.

In its 68-year history, the UK has won an impressive five times - the same as Luxembourg, France and the Netherlands.

But in recent years, there have also been plenty of occasions that we've found ourselves on the wrong side of the leaderboard, right at the very bottom and sometimes with nul points at all.

What does 'nul points' mean?

Eurovision voting is not exactly straightforward - the public vote makes up 50% of the total with the other half being decided by a professional jury of experts in each participating country.

Each country has a national spokesperson who will announce the public vote from their country.

The spokesperson will then reveal how the professional jury voted, awarding points from zero or ('nul') to the maximum and highly sought-after “douze points”.

After the presentation of the scores from the juries, the public points from all participating countries will be combined to get one score for each song.

Free Press Series: Katrina And The Waves ahead of performing at Eurovision (Rebecca Naden/PA)Katrina And The Waves ahead of performing at Eurovision (Rebecca Naden/PA)

When was the last time that the UK won Eurovision?

The UK hasn't been crowned a Eurovision winner for quite some time - for over 20 years in fact. 

We last won the competition in 1997 with Katrina and the Waves and the song 'Love Shine a Light'.

The UK did get very close with TikTok star Sam Ryder in 2022.

His song 'Space Man' came in second place with an impressive 466 points.

Recommended reading

How many times has the UK scored no points?

We have scored at the bottom of the leaderboard four times in our Eurovision history.

However, we have only scored zero points twice, including once in 2003 and again in 2021.

The Liverpool-based group Jemini were chosen to be part of Eurovision that year with the song 'Cry Baby', after a public phone poll during the TV show A Song for Europe competition.

In 2021, bad luck struck twice with James Newman's song 'Embers' also failing to win a single point.