Andros Townsend's Hilarious Pitch Roller Incident in Thailand

Andros Townsend has survived cold Tuesday nights at Stoke. Now he can add something far stranger to the list: being run over by a pitch roller in Thailand.

The former England winger, now with PT Prachuap in Thai League 1, was involved in a bizarre pre-match incident on Saturday at Pattani that quickly went viral. As Townsend warmed up on the touchline, a member of the home staff appeared to lose control of a heavy pitch roller, which then careered straight into the 35-year-old.

The roller clipped Townsend and his left leg briefly became trapped underneath the machine, sparking alarm among players and staff. Remarkably, he not only got back to his feet, he later came off the bench and featured in Prachuap’s 3-0 win.

Once the dust – and the social media replays – had settled, Townsend did what he does so often as a pundit and personality: he turned it into a joke.

The regular ITV pundit headed to Instagram to poke fun at the incident, linking it back to a recent post where he had contrasted a sun-soaked away day in Thailand with the notoriously bleak trips to Stoke’s bet365 Stadium from his Premier League days.

"It turns out Stoke away wasn’t so bad after all. Swipe to see why," he wrote on his Instagram story, inviting followers to watch the clip of the roller collision.

Another post doing the rounds dubbed him "The King of Memes in Thai League history". Townsend leaned straight into it, replying, "trust me" followed by four laughing emojis.

From windswept nights in the Potteries to dodging ground equipment in Pattani, Townsend’s late-career adventure in Thailand is already delivering the kind of stories you simply don’t get from a standard away day.