Andros Townsend's Bizarre Encounter with a Pitch Roller in Thailand

Andros Townsend has survived Stoke away. Now he can say he’s survived something even stranger.

The former England winger was involved in a bizarre incident in Thailand when he was run over by a pitch roller during the warm-up for PT Prachuap’s Thai League 1 clash at Pattani on Saturday night.

Townsend, 35, was going through his pre-match routine when a member of the Pattani staff appeared to lose control of the heavy roller. The machine veered towards him and crashed into the ex-Tottenham and Crystal Palace man, briefly trapping his left leg underneath.

Remarkably, he escaped serious injury. Townsend still came off the bench later in the game, featuring in the closing stages of Prachuap’s 3-0 victory.

The clip of the collision quickly spread on social media, with fans stunned to see a 13-cap England international taken out not by a defender, but by ground equipment.

Townsend, now a regular pundit on ITV, chose to laugh it off. On Instagram, he leaned into a joke he’d already made this season, when he contrasted a sun-soaked away day in Thailand with those grim, windswept afternoons at Stoke’s bet365 Stadium.

“It turns out Stoke away wasn’t so bad after all. Swipe to see why,” he wrote on his Instagram story, pointing followers towards the footage.

Another post doing the rounds labelled him “The King of Memes in Thai League history”. Townsend replied in kind, answering simply: “trust me” – and letting four laughing emojis do the rest.

From cold nights in Stoke to dodging pitch rollers in Pattani, Townsend’s late-career adventure in Thailand is turning into something far more memorable than he, or anyone else, could have scripted.