Aberdeen Eurovision superfan attends song contest for 25th time

As some people will be heading to a Eurovision party on Saturday night, one Aberdeen superfan is marking his 25th anniversary of attending the song contest.

Taxi driver Kevin Sherwin, 63, has already booked accommodation in Croatia for 2025 as he predicts they could bag the title on Saturday night.

He first attended in 1994 where he witnessed the debut of Riverdance in Dublin.

30 years later, he his hitting the 25 mark in Malmö.

Kevin has met several celebrities on his travels including Graham Norton, Terry Wogan and Bonnie Tyler.

He also gained behind the scenes access after he began working for a Romanian newspaper at the competition in 2010.

Asked about which event was his favourite, Kevin replied: “Let’s just say you have 25 cats. People say ‘what’s your favourite cat?’

“Well, all your cats are different.”

Kevin’s love for Eurovision has attracted media attention from all across the continent, including an interview with Portuguese media for the 6’oclock news and a seat on This Morning's sofa.

This year, he has tickets for the rehearsal shows too, meaning he is a step ahead of the public having already watched all the acts.

Could the UK be in with a chance of winning?

Despite being a super-fan, Kevin said he has only ever predicted the winner three times.

He said the UK's entry for this year, 'Dizzy' performed by Olly Alexander, is "completely different to what we have experienced from the United Kingdom in the past."

Last year, when the UK were hosts, Kevin campaigned for Eurovision to be brought to Aberdeen's P&J Live.

The only Scottish bid was narrowed down to Glasgow but it was Liverpool who became the 2023 hosts.

He said he hasn't given up hopes of the contest coming to the North East just yet: "Well Glasgow were in the running to stage it last time so they should get first dibs on hosting it.

"Of course if the UK do win, I'll be standing outside the P&J arena saying it should come here."

However it's Switzerland or Croatia Kevin has his eyes on for this year's winner.

He described Croatia's entry as a real dance track: "If you can go back, there was a song in the 1980s by Dead or Alive called 'you spin me round like a record' and it's beat is very similar to that."

"A good disc jockey could segway both those songs together - brilliant.

"The Swiss song - everybody is raving about the Swiss song and I don't get it. But then again, what I like, other people don't and what I don't like, other people do."

Over the years, Kevin said Eurovision has got "a lot more serious", reminiscing on the weird and wonderful performances we've watched in the past.

"If you go back to the 80s and 90s there was so much gimmicks and so much ridiculous things.

"Now the songs are songs. I used to say it used to be the Eurovision song contest but now it's the Eurovision performance contest.

"The songs are good but there's a lot of dancing and costume changes."

Olly Alexander, representing the UK, will perform 'Dizzy' in Saturday night's final.