Quote from BBC:
There were high hopes for Humperdinck - affectionately known as "The Hump" - given his huge global fanbase, but his draw as first to sing in the contest seemingly proved detrimental.
In reality going first had nothing to do with it - what was critical was that "The Hump" is way past his best (given that Eurovision has been the graveyard of many a career was he the only one we could get to agree to do it?), there was no gimmick factor (like the Russian Grannies) and the song was from another era (though I'm not quite sure which). Those factors along with the buddy voting that goes on and the expansion of the competition to countries who have no love for ex-empirical nations (having just gained there independence from one) meant that the surprise was not that we did not do well but that we managed to avoid both getting "null points"
and being last.
So I suppose we got a result after all - roll on next year.
