ONE OF Basingstoke’s vaccination centres received a ‘shout out’ from Graham Norton on Saturday night’s Eurovision Song Contest grand final.

The annual contest, this year held in Rotterdam after the 2020 event was cancelled, sees families across the country - and world - join together for parties and celebrations.

It culminates in a grand final, which took place on Saturday (May 22), where each qualifying country competes to be crowned the winner.

Despite the fact that the United Kingdom did very poorly, with hopeful James Newman scoring zero points from the jury vote and from the public vote, commentator Graham Norton kept spirits up in his traditional style.

This included reading various ‘shout outs’ to viewers, giving special mention to birthdays, family reunions and first-time Eurovision watchers.

And Basingstoke volunteers have a claim to fame, as among those chosen for broadcast was an entry from Basingstoke, which read: “The Basingstoke Fire Station vaccination centre team will all be watching - so excited for Eurovision!”

Some 7.4 million people tuned in to watch the competition on BBC One, giving the channel a 48.5 per cent share of the audience.

It was the biggest overnight audience for a Eurovision final since 2014.