Andros Townsend's Terrifying Pitch Roller Incident in Thailand

Andros Townsend has called the moment he was run over by a pitch roller in Thailand “terrifying” – and watching it back still makes his stomach turn.

The 35-year-old former England winger, now playing for PT Prachuap in Thai League 1, was going through a routine warm-up in Pattani on Saturday when chaos broke out on the touchline. A member of staff appeared to lose control of a heavy pitch roller, which suddenly veered towards the players.

Townsend didn’t have time to get out of the way. His left leg was briefly trapped underneath the machine.

Somehow, he walked away.

He not only stayed on his feet, he came off the bench later in the game as his side cruised to a 3-0 win.

Speaking about the incident for the first time on Piers Morgan's Football Uncensored, Townsend admitted he is still stunned by what he sees on the replay.

“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.”

Townsend, who won 13 caps for England and has played for clubs including Tottenham, Crystal Palace and Luton, said the whole scene had felt odd even before the accident. Two rollers were parked on either side of the pitch as the players prepared to 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.

Seconds later, he was underneath one of them.

“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.”

The winger, whose career has already been interrupted by serious injuries, feared this freak moment might be the one that finished him. Both his left ankle and left knee have been operated on in the past, and as the roller pinned him down, his mind went straight to the worst-case scenario.

“I thought, either my left ankle was going to snap or my left knee is going to snap. I thought I was done. I was very fortunate that I was able to hobble away and recover within a few minutes.”

Townsend described how he fought his way out from under the weight of the roller.

“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.

“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 team-mates urged him to head straight to the doctor. He refused. He finished the warm-up.

Townsend insists the scare will not derail him.

The roller incident, he said, is “definitely not going to stop me from continuing”.

Later, he made light of it on Instagram, leaning on a joke from a recent post where he compared a sun-drenched away day in Thailand with the far less glamorous experience of playing at Stoke’s Bet365 Stadium.

“It turns out Stoke away wasn't so bad after all,” he wrote.

From a cold night in the Potteries to a pitch roller in Pattani, Townsend has survived both. The football keeps going. So does he.