Dion Charles’s old Accrington Stanley team-mates posted a cheeky message to him on the door of the away dressing room before Saturday’s 3-2 thriller.

The Bolton striker left the Wham Stadium in January in a deal worth £320,000 – a fee he joked had helped to buy the new changing facilities in the corner of the ground.

When the Wanderers team bus pulled up, a note had been scrawled on the wall welcoming Ian Evatt’s side to the ‘Colby Bishop dressing rooms’ – in reference to another Stanley striker, who had departed for Portsmouth in the summer.

The reaction to Charles’s return from Accrington’s fans was less jovial, with the Northern Ireland international subjected to a number of abusive chants throughout the game.

He had the last laugh, however, helping Wanderers overturn a 2-0 deficit to win the game 3-2 and return to the play-off positions.

“This is probably important for him coming back to his old club,” said manager Ian Evatt. “You always want to win against your old club and I thought the way he kept going and led the line, he’s a difficult player to play against.

“He’s relentless, he runs in behind, he does not give opposition defenders a minute and I thought he did that again today. The goals will come for him as well. We know what Dion is and we know what we’ve got with Dion. We’re really pleased.”

Evatt had swapped formation after the second goal, moving to 4-3-3, and had been ready to throw on Kieran Sadlier and Josh Sheehan at 2-1 down until two quickfire goals in four minutes from Kieran Lee and Dapo Afolayan flipped the game on its head.

“You feel like you want to apologise to them because they’re just about to come onto the pitch and make a difference and we’ve gone ‘bang bang’ and it's 3-2 ahead and that was that,” Evatt said.

“I’ve got a great squad of players that I have huge amounts of belief in and in all of them. It’s hard for me to pick teams and it’s hard for me to pick subs benches and it’s hard for me to make decisions in game to see who I can bring on, but that’s the nature of football and when you get your chance, you have to make an impact and I thought everybody that was on the pitch has made an impact.”