My pre-game preparation usually meant sticking to a routine but two hours before the first bounce I’d somewhat un-routinely met the Prime Minister of Australia, who’d visited the umpires’ rooms to personally congratulate me. I felt a mixture of excitement, honour and discomfort at being highlighted.

The question arose again in 2012, when I was appointed to the AFL grand final. The game itself was a breeze compared to overwhelming attention I received in the week leading up to it.

Months before my first league game, the media scrum descended. With the scrutiny came a burning desire to prove my worth, fuelled by a question implied but never asked outright: Am I here because I deserve to be?

I didn’t think twice when asked to wave the flags for the boys’ teams in high school. The following year, umpiring became the ideal part-time job to complement my studies in clarinet at the Queensland Conservatorium; both vocations required dexterous index fingers. I trained with the local umpires alongside males and females, young and old. As a 17-year-old footy fanatic, being a girl was beside the point.

That day was the culmination of a decade in which I’d accumulated plenty of internal baggage, brought on by references to tokenism (especially during Women’s Round). I trained for five-kilometre time trials, push-up tests and skin-folds, all measured against targets set for my male colleagues. My attempts to fit in saw me try to appear more assertive. I wore ill-fitting men’s uniforms without complaint and I even cut off my ponytail. Misguided or not, each effort was well-intended and has reaped rewards.

Football has come to mean so much more to me than having the best seat in the house and rubbing shoulders with heroes of the game. It has helped to define me, and I believe in its capacity as a vehicle for defining us collectively in broader society.

Magical moments are captured through a non-gendered lens – hearing Nic Naitanui exhaling with effort as he prevents a goal by the breadth of a fingernail; signalling Jimmy Bartel’s shot after the siren to clinch an epic one-point victory over Hawthorn; being enveloped by the spine-tingling cheer of the crowd during the final bars of the national anthem on Anzac Day.

Scrutiny has its advantages. Umpires used to be derided as “White Maggots” but I've been subject to shouts of “Love your work, you go girl!” from local Aboriginal women when umpiring in Alice Springs. I've blushed when approached at the grocers by an excited father whose daughters play for a new girls’ team and I swelled with pride the day a member of the Collingwood cheer squad said "Hello" instead of throwing a stubby at my head.

The enduring message for me is the power of football to challenge perceptions, build bridges and promote change. Where once I was a reluctant cheerleader for women, I’ve come to embrace the mantra of role model and encourage girls to aspire and define success for themselves. There may come a day when I feel equally passionate about raising awareness of the pressures men face to adopt feminine traits.