Andros Townsend: Being run over by pitch roller was ‘terrifying’

Townsend, who won 13 caps for England, said that he did think it was strange to see two rollers either side of the pitch 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.”

Townsend, who has had numerous setbacks with injuries during his career, said the roller incident was “definitley not going to stop me from continuing”.

“They (his team-mates) were very surprised that I continued the warm-up. They were telling me to go to the doctor,” he said.

“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.”

Townsend was concerned his ankle and left knee, which have both been operated on, would be damaged in the incident.

He said: “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.”

The midfielder made light of the incident on Instagram, referencing one of his recent posts in which he compared a sun-drenched Thai away trip with previous visits to Stoke’s Bet365 Stadium.

He wrote: “It turns out Stoke away wasn’t so bad after all.”