PHIL Parkinson does not want the hype over his return to Bradford City today to distract Wanderers from the job at hand.

Emotions will run high at Valley Parade as the Whites boss goes back to the club he took from the doldrums of League Two to the fringes of the Championship and a Wembley League Cup final before moving to the Macron last summer.

But though Parkinson insists no degree of animosity this afternoon will tarnish the memory of his near five-year stint with the Bantams, he has warned his players not to get caught up in the furore.

“I want the players to enjoy the atmosphere but concentrate on their performance level,” he told The Bolton News. “Ignore all the hype. When the whistle goes, every player has got a job to do.

“It’s useless me standing here and saying ‘this is just another game’ because it isn’t. This is a high profile match between two good sides at the top of the league.

“Let’s enjoy the challenge it brings.

“Me and the staff going back there is great – we will look forward to saying hello to some old friends and enjoying a ground where I have some very happy memories. But my players have to concentrate on doing what we have worked on in training.”

Parkinson explained his decision to leave Bradford last June was partly due to a feeling the club’s new German owners, Edin Rahic and Stefan Rupp, wanted to appoint their own man.

The Wanderers boss felt those reasons were lost in the cross-fire after his move across the Pennines but he is happy to see Stuart McCall making a success of his second spell in charge.

“I think a few things got distorted at the time I left and I didn’t really get a chance to explain things clearly,” Parkinson said. “I had a press statement which Edin wrote and I stuck with it out of respect to them. But my thoughts at the time have been proved right. When new owners come in they often want to do things their way. Me going gave them an opportunity of a clean slate and they appointed a really good manager, put their own mark behind the scenes. As much as there was some disruption, it has worked out well for the owners.”