of Hull City in late June 2006, following the departure of Peter Taylor. Hull agreed to pay Colchester £400,000 compensation. When he led Hull against his old club, however, he was embarrassed as his former club romped home 5–1. After another defeat in the next match at home to Southampton 4–2, he left by "mutual consent" in early December, leaving Hull in the relegation zone. Charlton Athletic Parkinson then joined Charlton Athletic in January 2007 as assistant manager to Alan Pardew, having previously worked together at Reading. He was close to a return to management with Huddersfield Town in April 2007, but made a last-minute decision to remain with Charlton. Parkinson later extended his contract with Charlton until 2010. Following Pardew's departure in November 2008, he was appointed caretaker manager and given the job permanently on New Year's Eve 2008, despite failing to win any of his eight matches in caretaker charge. Under his management, Charlton were relegated to the third tier of English football for the first time in nearly 30 years. In League One, Charlton started off very well, winning their first six league matches, but that run was brought to an end after a 1–1 draw at home to Southampton, Parkinson's ex-manager Alan Pardew's side. Charlton continued to do well and were in the top two until the new year where Norwich overtook them and they then never returned to the top two, finishing fourth in the league. In the play-offs, they had to play Swindon Town over the two legs and lost the first one 2–1 at the County Ground. In the second, however, they turned it around and led 2–0 but Swindon fought back and it finished 3–3 on aggregate. Swindon then continued and won on penalties 5–4 to condemn Parkinson and his men to another season in League One. Having not won a league game since November, Parkinson was sacked on 4 January 2011, the day after his side's 4–2 loss at home to Swindon. Bradford City Parkinson was appointed manager of Bradford City on 28 August 2011. He won the League Two Manager of the Month award for December 2011 after victories over promotion candidates Shrewsbury Town and Crewe Alexandra. Parkinson also enjoyed a promising run in the Johnstones Paint Trophy with the Bantams taking them to the Northern division semi-finals with victories over Yorkshire rivals Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United as well