During a hectic week he caught up with TheFA.com as part of our 'New Breed' series to talk about how the UEFA Pro-Licence has helped him.

When Parkinson took over at Layer Road in February 2003, he’d never managed a club before, and was maybe a surprise choice, coming directly from the playing staff at Reading, to replace previous boss Steve Whitton.

After impressing early on, his development has been further accelerated by his participation on the UEFA Pro-Licence Course – the game’s highest coaching qualification, which is mandatory for Premier League bosses – and he has had the opportunity to learn alongside some of football’s biggest names.

“It’s a good learning curve for me, not just the content of the course, but working with the people who we are doing the course with and making contacts which will hopefully stay with you for years to come,” he told TheFA.com.

“We interact with other people on the course regularly and we learn a lot from each other. I’m in regular contact with quite a few of the other coaches on the course and that can only be good.

“The profile of the English coach and manager is rising all the time and I think there are some highly talented individuals coming through and this Pro-Licence has helped them all.”

Arriving at Layer Road, Parkinson inherited a side that had established itself as a Division Two mainstay after years languishing in the bottom division of the Football League and two years in the Conference.

The club finally gained promotion, from what was then Division Three, via the play-offs in 1998 but, until Parkinson arrived, their best ever finish was 15th. Not bad really when you consider the size of the club, whose quest for a new ground to replace their current 6,000 capacity stadium has rumbled on for the best part of 30 years and hindered progress on the pitch.

But as a coach, these things don’t necessarily come into consideration, and the ambitious 38-year-old is leading the Colchester charge towards heights never before witnessed in Britain’s oldest recorded town.

“I was confident in my ability as a manager,” he said, “but I was still going into the unknown a little.

“It’s gone better than expected, certainly this year, though I was confident with the squad I had.

"As you go along you are always learning, not just in the job but taking the course alongside my work has certainly helped accelerate the learning process.”

Log on to TheFA.com on Monday to read part two of the interview, as Phil says how his coaching methods have helped Colchester on their recent run of success.