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Jordan Henderson has been crowned Football Writers’ Association (FWA) Footballer of the Year for the 2019/20 season.

The Liverpool captain, according to Skysport, saw off stiff competition from Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne and Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford, as well as team-mates Virgil van Dijk and Sadio Mane, to claim the honour.

Liverpool’s dominance in the league was reflected in the voting as Trent Alexander-Arnold and Alisson Becker also received votes, but it was Henderson – with more than a quarter of the votes – who was the clear winner.

Reflecting on his win, Henderson said: “I’d like to say how appreciative I am of the support of those who voted for me and the Football Writers’ Association in general.

“You only have to look at the past winners of it, a number of whom I’ve been blessed to play with here at Liverpool, like Stevie (Gerrard), Luis (Suarez) and Mo (Salah) to know how prestigious it is.

“But as grateful as I am I don’t feel like I can accept this on my own.

“I don’t feel like anything I’ve achieved this season or in fact during my whole career has been done on my own.

“I owe a lot to so many different people – but none more so than my current team-mates – who have just been incredible and deserve this every bit as much as I do.

“We’ve only achieved what we’ve achieved because every single member of our squad has been brilliant. And not just in matches. Not just in producing the moments that make the headlines and the back pages but every day in training.”

Henderson became the first Liverpool captain to lift the Premier League trophy, as the Reds ended a 30-year wait for a top-flight title.

Fresh facts have emerged on how more than twenty persons were roasted alive when a tanker laden with petroleum products burst into flames after it exploded at Koko Junction in the ever-busy Benin, Sapele High Way in Ethiope West Local Government Area of Edo State in South-South Nigeria.

According to an eye witness who spoke to our correspondent on the telephone, the driver of the tanker would have avoided the accident if he had been cautious at the bad spot on the junction.

“The driver fell into a gutter but that road is bad and he ought to have been very careful. He was not careful at that spot and that made him fall with his tanker.
“I was close to that place doing shopping when I heard a loud bang and the next thing was fire everywhere.

“We normally have such incidents there and that is why vehicles, particularly the articulated ones, must be very careful.
“Because it was sudden, a lot of vehicles on that road could not see how to escape and that is also because the road is not very good.
“All of them were burnt and that is how so many people died.

“I personally counted more than twenty bodies and I am very sure that the least that could have died in the fire will be twenty-four.
“In one of the burning vehicles, onlookers could see trapped occupants yelling, shouting, and battling for their lives as the fire from spills of the tanker was raging seriously.”

On whether the men of the fire service did not respond immediately, he said they might have been delayed by traffic, but commended their efforts in putting out the fire eventually.
“If you look at how the fire was raging, it was difficult for anyone to get close and that is why so many people were helpless in assisting those trapped in their vehicles
“But the fire service tried though they did not arrive on time maybe because of traffic.
“But immediately they arrived, they worked tirelessly to stop the fire,” says the eye witness named Chika, an undergraduate of the University of Benin, who is staying with his parents in the Edo State capital due to the lockdown on academic activities in the Nigerian ivory towers, saying more than fifteen vehicles were burnt in the process.