Bolton Wanderers staff gave Sam Allardyce a welcome present when he returned to his former club last weekend.

Crystal Palace boss Allardyce was left a bag of meat and potato pasties in the away dressing room at Bolton’s Macron Stadium when Palace played there on Saturday.

The pasties were from Bolton bakery Carrs Pasties and were delivered on a tray to the former manager before the start of the match.

Keith (known as Frank) O’Hara, head of customer service at Carrs Pasties, told British Baker: “Big Sam used to love the pasties when he was at Wanderers, in actual fact he was once asked by an interviewer from Sky TV what the pie was he’d seen in his office, and he responded, ‘that’s not a pie it’s a pasty, a Carrs pasty – the best in the world!’.”

When asked about the pasties again on Saturday, Allardyce repeated the sentiment to the international press, much to the delight of everyone at Carrs.

Allardyce spent nine years with Bolton Wanderers as a player in the 1970s and won promotion to the Premier League as manager during an eight-year spell from 1999.

The 62-year-old led Bolton into Europe for the first time in 2005 and the club finished in the Premier League’s top half in four successive seasons under his leadership.