More than 18 months since a horrific accident on the set of Top Gear, Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff has revealed his struggles with anxiety, nightmares and flashbacks after suffering life-changing injuries.
Flintoff was driving an open-topped three-wheel car when it flipped and slid along the track at Surrey’s Dunsfold aerodome in December 2022. He was airlifted to hospital after suffering facial injuries and broken ribs.
In a new BBC show, Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams on Tour, the 46-year-old speaks about how he was “crying every two minutes” and left his home only for medical appointments in the seven months after the crash in a Morgan Super 3.
In the docuseries, a sequel to 2022’s Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams, Flintoff takes a group of young people from his home town of Preston on a cricketing tour of India – a trip that had to be postponed after the star’s crash.
The first episode shows Flintoff in what appears to be a hospital bed talking about the crash. “I genuinely should not be here with what happened,” he says. “This will be a long road back and I’ve only just started. I’m stuck already. I need help, and I realise I’m not the best at asking for it. I need to stop crying every two minutes.”
He adds: “I’ve got to look at the positives, haven’t I? I’m still here, I’ve got another chance, I’ve got to go at it. I’m seeing that as how it is, a second go. I’m really looking forward to seeing the lads again and being around them, I really am.”
Seven months later, after multiple operations for facial injuries, the film shows Flintoff reflecting further on the mental and physical impacts of the crash.
“I thought I could just shake it off … but it’s not been a case of that. It’s been a lot harder than I thought. As much as I’ve wanted to go out and do things, I’ve just not been able to.
“I was full of anxiety. I had nightmares, I had flashbacks. It’s been so hard to cope with. But some of these lads have had a tough life. You’ve got to try and put it into perspective and I feel guilty I can’t do that. I don’t want to sit here and feel sorry for myself, I don’t want sympathy.”
The BBC announced it had “rested” Top Gear, which had been running since 2002, for the foreseeable future after Flintoff’s accident and paid £9m in compensation to him.
The former Lancashire all-round cricketer has since made a steady return to the public eye, rejoining England’s backroom staff for their T20 series against the West Indies earlier this year, and as head coach of the Northern Superchargers in the Hundred.
In the episode, his former Lancashire teammate Kyle Hogg, who helps to coach the team, can be seen telling the players about Flintoff’s crash, and that their trip to India will be postponed.
But while Flintoff shut himself away for some months to recover, his loyalty to the team was what eventually motivated him to get out there again. He is later seen reuniting with the team and asking if they still want to go to India.
It was an emotional reunion. “I missed you,” one of the boys tells him, while another asks if he is “feeling 100%”.
“Not really,” Flintoff replies. “I’m not sure I ever will again, to be honest. I’m better than I was. I don’t know what completely better is. I am what I am now, I’m different to what I was, that’s something I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life. Better, no. Different.”
Once the team is in India, Flintoff explains that he feels “like a father to the lads”, and says cricket is helping him to recover from his crash. “When I’m around cricket, I seem to forget everything, I lose myself in the game,” he says.
“I feel like I’ve been more vulnerable than I ever have in my life in the past 12 months, so I’m reaching out to cricket I suppose again, to help me.”
Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams on Tour will air on BBC One at 9pm on 13 August and will also be made available on BBC iPlayer.
