Crystal Palace winger Andros Townsend admits that he is missing football as the Premier League continues to be suspended indefinitely.But Townsend insists that while Palace’s stars are enjoying time with their families, they are keeping themselves fit and ensuring that they will be ready for when the Premier League returns.
Andros Townsend said “To be honest, I’m finding it alright. I’m very fortunate I’ve got two young kids so they’re keeping me occupied. I’m delving into their routine, when they nap, I nap, when they play I play so I go along with what they do. Obviously, I’m missing football, but to be able to spend more time with the kids is nice, it’s a little silver lining in what are dark times at the minute. They’ve [Crystal Palace] sent us a few running programmes, gym programmes, bike programmes and stuff we can do in and around the house. There’s a website where we punch in what we’ve done, how long we’ve done it for and how hard it was. They’re in the process at the minute of sending us GPS units so they can track what we’ve done. When this is all over and when football does become relevant again, we’re ready to go. We don’t know when the return date will be so it’s just ticking over. Don’t do too much and don’t do too little. Tick over and when we get a return date, we can start ramping up the fitness to hit the ground running.”
Andros Townsend is one of 64 professional footballers who have been participating in the STAY INtertoto Cup Fifa tournament, which has been organised to raise money for the NHS. No top flight games have been played, or any games at any level of professional football in England, for more than one month, with the country now in lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Premier League clubs met on Friday to discuss the next steps, but no date has been set for the return of football in England, with players and staff at home and observing the government’s social distancing measures.
