Andros Townsend's Terrifying Encounter with a Pitch Roller
Andros Townsend has called the moment he was run over by a pitch roller in Thailand “terrifying” – and watching it back still makes him wince.
The 35-year-old former England winger, now playing for PT Prachuap in Thai League 1, was going through his warm-up in Pattani on Saturday when chaos broke out on the touchline. A member of staff appeared to lose control of a heavy roller being used on the surface. Within seconds, Townsend’s left leg was trapped underneath it.
Somehow, he walked away. Somehow, he even played.
Townsend’s leg was briefly caught under the machine, but he escaped without serious injury and later came off the bench in a 3-0 win. Speaking publicly about the incident for the first time on Piers Morgan’s Football Uncensored, he admitted he knows just how close he came to disaster.
“Every time I see it, I'm cringing, I'm in disbelief,” he said. “It's horrible to watch back and to see what could have been, thankfully I was fortunate I did manage to fall onto the floor at the right time, so nothing snapped as the roller went over me.”
He described getting out from under the roller with only “bumps and bruises” as lucky. Very lucky.
Townsend, capped 13 times by England and with a career that has taken in Tottenham, Crystal Palace and Luton, said he had already clocked something odd before the incident. Two rollers, one on each side of the pitch, caught his eye during the warm-up.
“I remember thinking to myself, 'I've never seen that before in my career, what are they doing?' But we got called to warm-up. Didn't think anything of it,” he said. “The next I saw him was when I was literally underneath him and thankfully no serious damage. A couple of bumps and bruises but managed to walk away unscathed, luckily.”
What the footage doesn’t show is the strain underneath the metal. Townsend explained how he fought to relieve the pressure as the roller pinned him down.
“It was quite heavy, but I was able to kind of lift [it], force it off me. So when it was completely on me, I was getting crushed a little bit,” he said. “I was able to get my left arm up and relieve some of the pressure, and then I was able to get my team-mates around me who were able to lift it, and I was able to squeeze out but at that moment where it was crushing my left leg, it was quite terrifying, I must say.”
His panic was sharpened by his medical history. Townsend has already endured major surgery on his left ankle and left knee. As the roller bore down, his mind went straight to both.
“I thought, either my left ankle was going to snap or my left knee is going to snap. I thought I was done,” he admitted. “I was very fortunate that I was able to hobble away and recover within a few minutes.”
Team-mates urged him to head straight for the doctor. He refused. He finished the warm-up. Then he played.
Townsend, whose career has been repeatedly interrupted by injuries, insisted this freak episode is “definitely not going to stop me from continuing”. The dressing room, though, could barely believe what they were seeing.
“They were very surprised that I continued the warm-up. They were telling me to go to the doctor,” he said.
Later, he chose humour to process what had happened. On Instagram, Townsend referenced a recent post where he had compared a sun-soaked away day in Thailand to the more familiar cold of Stoke’s Bet365 Stadium.
“It turns out Stoke away wasn't so bad after all,” he wrote.
A joke, yes. But behind it is a player who knows he has already dodged one of the most bizarre and dangerous near-misses of his career – and is determined that a runaway roller won’t be the thing that finally stops him.
