Kevin Nolan recalls time Sam Allardyce grabbed him by the ear and pinned him against a wall as young player at Bolton

Kevin Nolan and Sam Allardyce followed each other around throughout their careers but nearly had a falling out early on.

Allardyce ended up signing Nolan twice in his career, once at Newcastle and then at West Ham, where the midfielder remains to this day as a coach.

But the two actually started their relationship at Bolton when Nolan was a teenager and an up-and-coming talent while Allardyce arrived as manager to replace Colin Todd.

In the early days, Nolan knew straight away that he would get on well with his new boss.

However, there was one day when Allardyce had pinned the Liverpool-born starlet up against the wall having been left angry with the player's effort in a training session.

In a lengthy chat with Andy Goldstein and Darren Bent on talkSPORT Drive, Nolan revealed all on a classic story about Big Sam.

He said live on air: «Sam had picked his XI [for the weekend] and I obviously wasn't in the XI. I was 19, I might have just turned 20.

»So I remember thinking, 'I'm not having this, I am going to see him'. I am raging.

«And I trained like it, a bit lethargic, and you think you have got away with it.

»This is why Sam was so good because he has given it one of them so I am thinking, 'I am fuming'. He's like 'Kev, come and see me in the office in a bit'.

«I was like, 'yep yep', but I was thinking 'yeah, I will. I was coming anyway. I am definitely coming to see you'.

»So I have knocked on his door and walked in and literally before I even got to sit down, he has jumped up, grabbed hold of me, by the ear, and he has got me up against the wall.

«He said, 'if you EVER, ever do that to one of my training sessions again, you will know'.

»And I've just gone, 'yep I was just coming to say sorry gaffer!'"

As history would go on to