[7] After trials with their reserve team towards the end of the 1932–33 season, Parkinson signed professional forms with Football League First Division club Sheffield Wednesday.
[4] He then signed for Football League Third Division North club Darlington, whose regular goalkeeper, Harry Walker, was recovering from a knee cartilage operation.
[15] Parkinson began the 1937–38 season in possession, but a broken bone in his wrist let Walker back in,[16] and his performances earned him a £1000 transfer to First Division Portsmouth.
He was left out in December to give Frank Gower his Football League debut,[19] but after a 4–0 loss to Southport, Parkinson returned to the team at the end of January and remained in it.
[22] The 1939 Register finds Parkinson working as an annealing furnaceman in a steel foundry and living in Darlington with his wife, Maria Annie née Vest, whom he married in 1936,[23] and their baby son, Walter.