Latest news with #KevinSherwin
Daily Mirror
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
'I'm Eurovision's number one fan - but I dont want UK to win'
Eurovision's number one fan Kevin Sherwin, from Aberdeen, spends a fortune on travelling across Europe to watch the show live every year and says it's worth every penny Taxi driver Kevin Sherwin claims to be Eurovision's number one fan – spending £50K travelling to destinations across Europe during the 30 years he's been watching the show live. Speaking from Basel, Switzerland, where he's watching his 26th live contest, he confesses that he hopes the UK fails to win the Saturday night final. Kevin, 63, of Aberdeen, says: 'I love going to wave the Union flag and support the UK, but it would be a terrible disappointment if we actually won – I'd miss out on my yearly holiday. It would be nice if we came second, but I'm really rooting for Iceland or Albania – I've travelled about 50,000 miles for Eurovision, but I've never been there.' Ever since he sang along to Cliff Richard singing Congratulations in 1968 when he was four, Kevin - who lives with his partner who also likes the contest but is not as big a fan - he's loved Eurovision. Longing to watch in person, only invited guests and production staff had access in the 1970s and 80s. So, in 1994, seeing an advert on Ceefax, offering tickets to see Eurovision in Dublin for £300, he snapped one up. 'It was an iconic performance to be at,' he recalls. 'I'd had to rent a dinner jacket, it was very formal, but it was the year that Riverdance performed in the interval, so I can say I was at the world premiere of that. It just blew me away, and I knew I had to keep going back. For me, Eurovision is like Christmas. There's a huge lead up to it all year, and then a few days before the contest, all the fans start to arrive – it's like seeing my Eurovision family for the holidays. 'There's such a buzz in the air and it's like being in a little cocoon – nothing can bring us down. Yes, it always costs a lot of money, but I live quite frugally the rest of the year, and Eurovision is my little splurge. It's much better than sitting on a beach somewhere." Kevin's only missed four live performances since 1994 – after being unable to get tickets between 1996 and 2000. These days, he books hotel rooms up to a year in advance - often in multiple cities - to avoid disappointment. 'When the winner is revealed, I start looking to book accommodation straight away,' he says. 'There are usually two or three possible cities that it could be held in, so I book a refundable hotel room in each of them. "This time, I made sure I had accommodation in Basel, Geneva and Zurich. You can usually work out which week the competition will be held, depending on the champions league final. But I've been known to book three hotels for three different weeks to make sure I get a spot. Sometimes this can mean getting them before the prices go up too high.' Regularly staying in the same hotels as performers, he's shared a breakfast table with many UK singers - befriending performers from around the world. 'I met Terry Wogan several times, who was a lovely man, so kind and genuine with the fans,' he says. 'I've met Graham Norton too, who is also lovely. People ask me which commentary style I prefer, but I have to tell them that I've never actually heard the commentary – I'm always at the event and I never watch it on TV. 'Most of the singers are lovely too, but there are a few who are real divas. They refuse to come down and eat with other people, and have everything ordered to their room.' And Kevin spends the rest of the year trying to spread his love for Eurovision. 'I always like to have Eurovision tunes playing in my taxi, and I try to shoehorn it into conversation,' he admits. 'I've always got a little snippet of information to share with people, and they usually love chatting about Eurovision – even if they do roll their eyes to start with. It really does bring people together, even if that's because they hate it – it's always a talking point.'
Press and Journal
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Press and Journal
Eurovision superfan: Aberdeen cabbie has racked up 45,000 miles and spent more than £50,000 on 'obsession'
It all started in Dublin in 1994 when Kevin Sherwin attended his first Eurovision Song Contest and was captivated by Riverdance. Since then, the Aberdeen taxi driver has travelled no less than 45,000 miles – which is more than one and a half times round the world – listened to around 900 songs, and visited 20-plus capital cities and major conurbations from Copenhagen to Tallinn, Malmo to Vienna and Tel Aviv to Istanbul. He is Scotland's Mr Eurovision, a man who has met and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Terry Wogan, Graham Norton and Pete Waterman and possesses an encyclopaedic knowledge of one of the great annual festivals of kitsch on the entertainment calendar. In which light, it's no surprise that I caught up with him in Basel this week, where the latest contest will be staged on Saturday night in front of a TV audience estimated at between 160 and 200 million people across Europe. Even before he began his journeys to all the venues, Kevin was fascinated by the annual song festival and has plenty of stories to tell about his adventures. He said: 'People ask me why I'm obsessed with Eurovision, but I can go back to the 1970s when I was passionate about music. 'There was no YouTube or MTV in those days, so the only chance to watch music on television was your weekly episode of Top of the Pops. 'So imagine how excited I was when the Eurovision Song Contest came on, with 20 songs from various countries, followed by the drama of the voting. 'I suppose it was a bit like It's a Knockout, but with music. I was hooked.' Eurovision has never been just about the music, even if it can be as cheesy as a lorryload of brie and often resembles an explosion in a glitter factory. But Kevin is in his element whenever he arrives at the contest and starts mingling with people in exotic attire which has to be seen, if not necessarily to be believed. He said: 'On stage, at different times, I've seen turkeys, spacemen, pirates, men dressed in gorilla costumes, and one Austrian with cardboard animals. 'I've also seen Russian grannies, an Australian singer balancing on a 20-foot pole, hamster wheels and one man who wanted to appear naked with live wolves. 'He didn't get his wish!' Kevin talks expertly about the likes of Sandie Shaw, Cliff Richard and Lulu representing Great Britain back in the 1960s, but he eventually grew frustrated with watching the event on TV. He needed to be there – in person. He explained: 'My obsession was taking over and I had to try to get to a live Eurovision, but unless you knew the director general of the TV company that was staging the event, you had no chance of getting a ticket. 'But then, in 1994, I saw an advert offering Eurovision tickets for sale at £300 each, plus dinner beforehand and the after party. It was too good to miss and that was how I went to my first Eurovision. 'After that, the organisers decided to sell tickets to the general public, so having paid £300 in 1994, I only had to pay £50 for my 1995 ticket'. In 2003, Kevin applied for press accreditation and that opened up a whole new perspective on Eurovision. He gained access to the rehearsals, press conferences and interviews with the artists. And his profile increased. As he said: 'In 2010, I was asked by the head of delegation from Romania if I'd be interested in doing some reports for a newspaper – thankfully it's an English speaking paper which is great as my Romanian isn't that good. 'But then, I began meeting some of the famous figures connected with the contest. The late Terry Wogan was a true gentleman. 'I met him at a few Eurovisions and we even shared a drink in the business class lounge in Belgrade in 2008, which turned out to be the last time that he presented it. 'But then, he was replaced by Graham Norton in 2009 and I did manage to get a picture with Graham and it was fascinating to me how he brought his own style. 'I even met Lys Assia, the Swiss woman who had won the first-ever event all the way back in 1956 and she was very interesting company.' The British entry has struggled to make any impact at recent contests – and there have even been claims that the Brexit vote was one of the factors behind 'nul' points becoming a regular occurrence. But Kevin doesn't have any truck with that theory as he looks forward to Remember Monday performing their catchy song What the Hell Just Happened. He said: 'The bottom line is that the UK has sent a lot of rubbish over the years – it's nothing to do with politics, just a poor choice of songs. 'Don't tell me that there's a granny in Moldova, for instance, watching her television and saying: 'I'm not voting for the UK because I don't like the Brexit fishing policy. 'Sadly the Eurovision polls don't rate our chances this weekend. Sweden and Austria are currently the favourites, but it could be too close to call with Albania, France and Malta very close behind. 'As is normal with Eurovision, there's always political controversy and we've already had five countries demanding Israel be disqualified from the contest. 'Over the years, it has changed from a one-night event to nine shows, so if you can't afford a grand final ticket at £300, you can always get a limited view semi-final family show ticket on Tuesday afternoon for £7. 'Being a canny Aberdonian, I picked the Tuesday and Thursday afternoon shows and splashed out on the grand final ticket.'
