The 51st Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Athens on May 20th.

The UK and Ireland have won the contest on 12 occasions and come second 18 times.

Sandie Shaw was the first UK artist to win, in 1967, and Cliff Richard reached number two the following year, while other Sixties runners-up included Bryan Johnson, Kathy Kirby, Kenneth McKellar, Sir Cliff again with Congratulations in 1968 and Lulu - joint number one in 1969 with Spain, The Netherlands and France.

Ireland's first Eurovision winner, in 1970, was Dana's All Kinds Of Everything, with the UK's Mary Hopkin runner-up.

New names began appearing Clodagh Rodgers, The New Seekers then Abba won in Brighton in 1974. Brotherhood Of Man scored 164 points to win in 1976 and Cliff Richard took third place in 1973.

In 1980, Ireland's Johnny Logan won with What's Another Year? and in 1987 he won again with Hold Me Now, becoming the only contestant to win twice.

Perhaps the best known of the UK entries was Bucks Fizz with Making Your Mind Up, which took the number one spot in 1981 with a brilliantly choreographed routine.

1988 saw Celine Dion taking first place while in 1992, Ireland's Linda Martin won and Michael Ball was a most popular runner up. Amazingly, 1993 gave Ireland another first and yet again the UK entry, Sonia, took second place.

In 1994 and 1996, Ireland won again but positions were reversed in 1997 when Katrina And The Waves won for the UK and Marc Roberts for Ireland was runner-up.

How nice it would be if our 2006 entry made us winners again.

-Michael Parker, Brighton