[LMBTO] Better Late Than Never - the 2015 OGAE SCC Eurovision results...

A full month later than 2014 (22nd November as against 22nd October) but eventually we have the results of the OGAE Second Chance Contest (SCC) 2015.  Last year saw the most gripping voting ever seen in the SCC, with Helena Paparizou piping Brequette to the title with the twelve points of the final jury, Romania (Helena wins the OGAE SCC 2014).  Would we have this tension again?  I felt that it was more open this year, with several artists being in with a chance of the win, assuming that the rest of the jurors (UK and others) felt the same way about the acts as I did.  As there weren't clear front runners as there were last year, I had my doubts...

In case you had forgotten, I have already highlighted my votes in this year's SCC in a previous post (My votes for the OGAE SCC 2015), which went something like this:


That meant that I believed that Franklin Calleja should take the SCC trophy back to Malta:
Could I get it right two years in a row?  I have to say that there was not much between Franklin, Dawa from Austria, Lindita from Albania and Nek from Italy for me in the end, so I could hedge my bets a little - I felt it was quite an open race for the title.  Little did I know that only one of those songs would be there at the end...

Gary Spiers (excellent job again, thank you) got all the 52 UK juror's votes in by August 10th but it obviously took a while for OGAE Sweden to receive the other 31 OGAE club's votes!  The actual presentation of the votes was all in one session this year - in my opinion, a great job well done by all at the Swedish club, including one Ben Robertson of ESC Insight, who appears several times to announce the scores of a few juries who did not appear in person.  Unlike last year, no toys were involved in the presentation of the scores, only human beings and it was all very slick and professionally done, an example of this was from Elise, the spokesperson for Estonia:
39 minutes of viewing pleasure saw an almost mirror image of this year's Eurovision proper - three acts out in front, huge scores for each, a couple of others clearly in 4th and 5th, the rest quite frankly nowhere.  No zero points though but one act didn't get a lot more than that.  First up, here is the voting for the 2015 OGAE SCC - pull up a chair, get a drink and watch as it only becomes clear who will win quite late on...



Enjoy that?  I did - it was all very close until the last couple of juries, so let's break it down a bit.  The first eleven nations were up:
My jury (the UK) provided their votes during this first third - as I have said before when it comes to other scores, my idea of Eurovision excellence didn't really match the other 51 UK jurors:


Only Italy exactly the same, none of my other three favourites near the top (Albania not even getting points!), Anne Gadegaard top and we gave points to Milki and Shaya?  I despair sometimes, I am obviously not hearing things the way others do!  Anyway, after eleven juries had voted, this was the scoreboard:
Already four acts were out in front, any of which could be in with a shout of the win.  The rest?  Even Norway in 5th was probably too far behind - three zeros still, including my eight and six points (probably not 'Eurovision enough')!  And those two nations 21 points behind the 'horror' that was Greece - if I were an emoticon at the moment, I would be one shaking its head.  Mariette was holding a slim lead at this point:
The middle twelve sets of scores looked like this:
which gave the following scoreboard:
Finland had now been cut adrift, leaving only the top three now with a chance of the win.  At this stage, the lead was 'chop and change' between Italy, Sweden and Denmark, with 4th and 5th going to either Finland or Norway.  Top marks had been shared amongst Nek, Mariette and Anne up to this point but then Denmark only received 7 points from the next five juries - Anne's chances of giving her nation their fourth SCC win had fallen away:
And then there were two:
Four nations left to vote, six points between Italy and Sweden.  All very close but after the next two sets of scores, including Sweden themselves, it was almost all over - Nek was twenty points clear:
Ben Robertson had the privilege of reading out the Montenegrin scores that clinched the victory for Italy:
This became even more emphatic when they also got full marks from Germany:
Using OGAE Sweden's excellent scoreboard production, it was clear that there were five 'and the rest', with Nek's win perhaps looking more emphatic than it might have done three juries from the end:
With my juror's hat on, I suppose the winner being one of my top four is a good thing but I was disappointed that two of my top five were in the bottom three.  Having said that, as a Eurovision fan, the winner was a great song, standing out from the crowd with its powerful soft rock edge and it is fully deserving of the SCC title.  I did also have Sweden down as my five points as well - given their history in this competition, it was more of a surprise that they DIDN'T win the OGAE Second Chance Contest this year:
Italy get their second win, joining Germany on two - one question springs to mind, will they 'host' next year's SCC?  Whether they do or not, they provided an amazing winner for the 2015 SCC - here is a reprise of Nek singing "Fatti Avanti Amore":



And so another session of being a juror is done for the year - always great fun to put down my opinions on a set of songs, even if I do seem at odds with a large swathe of Eurovision opinion!  There is the distinct possibility that we in the UK might not be a guest jury in 2016 for the SCC - we might have had our own National Final!  If we do, we get to put a British act forward - shock, horror!  Could we find some sort of greatness in this Contest?  Could we win a fourth time in 2016?