Kevin Nolan has recalled the moment Sam Allardyce picked him off his feet and pinned him to a wall in a fit of rage.
The 42-year-old former midfielder linked up with Big Sam at Bolton Wanderers between 1999 and 2007, and while their relationship was great for the most part – later teaming up again at West Ham as his skipper – Nolan recalled one time in particular which taught him quite the lesson in manners. Nolan appeared on the ‘No Tippy Tappy Football’ podcast alongside Allardyce and host Natalie Pike.
As the show came to an end, Pike turned her attention to some quick-fire questions for the former colleagues. She said: “This is just ‘Is It True’ – one of the things that we’ve heard and it involves you both, it’s one of these football rumoury-myth things,” to which Nolan interjected: “I know what’s coming,” before adding: “He probably won’t remember because he probably done it to a lot of them.”
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An excited Pike then added: “Is it true that Sam once pinned you up against a wall at Bolton?” A smiling Nolan replied: “Yeah. I remember it like it was yesterday and we were training on the far pitch and you used to do a bit of team shapes a couple of days before and I wasn’t in the team.”
As Allardyce started to smile, Nolan added: “Stig Tofting was in the team and he had Stig Tofting doing like all the things I done and I was just sort of, ‘I’m not having this’. I was basically p***ed off, excuse my language, but I was fuming.” He went on: “I’m like walking in and I’m going to see him and all of this type of stuff and I was like, ‘I need to see him’.
(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
“So I’ve obviously sort of tossed the session off, and I was a young lad at the time. I was sulking really bad – spat my dummy out, everything you can think of, I done. He was asking me to pass the ball and I would pass it but I’d do it like lethargically. It was just wrong.
“So anyway, I never done it again, let me tell you, because of what’s coming up. I remember him walking in, and as I was walking in, I remember tugging my boots off, slamming my boots down into the boot room and all that, and as I was walking into the changing room, ‘Nobby, come and see me in a minute’. ‘Yeah I will, yeah’.
“I’m thinking, ‘Yeah I’ll come and see you, I’ll have you for this… dropping me, what’s going on?’ Obviously the boy at the time doing really well thinking why is he dropping me? I was 19. So I’ve walked in, put a different t-shirt on and all the lads are like, ‘Fuming aren’t you?’ I was going, ‘Yeah I’m going to tell him now. I’m gonna tell him’.”
(Image: Daily Mirror)
However, Nolan had all of his confidence sucked out of him when Big Sam lunged towards him, pushing him up against the wall of the office. He went on: “As I shut the door, I just felt these two hands and I went sort of up against the wall – and he went, ‘You ever, ever toss my training session off again, you will know about it son’.
“And I went, ‘That’s what I’ve come in to say sorry gaffer’.” The trio burst into laughter, before Allardyce joked: “We didn’t have any HR, thank God.” Somehow, the brief altercation worked in Nolan’s favour, with Allardyce reinstating him back into the team – but Nolan admitted that he “never ever” acted so unprofessionally for the rest of his career.