De Spelbrekers
Dutch singing duo
De Spelbrekers (The Spoilsports) were a Dutch singing duo, consisting of Theo Rekkers (24 April 1924 – 20 April 2012) and Huug Kok (19 February 1918 – 27 October 2011). They were known for their participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 1962, representing the Netherlands.
Career
1940s and 1950s
Rekkers and Kok met during World War II at a munitions factory in Bremen, Germany, where they were working as forced labourers. They formed De Spelbrekers in 1945, after the war had ended. Their recording career began in 1950, and they released numerous singles during the decade, the most successful being "Oh wat ben je mooi" which reached #5 in the Dutch charts in 1956.
Eurovision Song Contest
In 1962, De Spelbrekers took part in the Dutch national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, and won with the song "Katinka". They went on to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 1962, held in Luxembourg City on 18 March. In a field of 16 contestants, "Katinka" was one of four songs (the others being the entries from Belgium, Spain and Austria) which failed to score. During De Spelbrekers performance at the Eurovision Song Contest 1962, there was a power cut that seemed to turn the lights down during parts of De Spelbrekers performance. This very well could have been a reason for the nul points.
“De Spelbrekers” enters the record as dutch singing duo. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Spelbrekers, Dutch and singing can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 3, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q570960. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1924, 2012, 1918 and 2011.
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This entry incorporates text from “De Spelbrekers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.