As a 21-year-old in 2005, a good friend of mine, Penny Tanner, asked if I wanted to come along to a meeting of the Women's Standing Committee in Perth, Western Australia.

As the meeting commenced I was introduced to a gentleman with a strong Scottish brogue, despite having lived in Australia for more than 20 years. He had a shock of white hair and one of the kindest, most inviting smiles I'd ever seen.

"This is Tom Sermanni," I was told.

"Coach of the Matildas."

At that time, I had just started working very loosely in football media after Penny had asked if I wanted to join her community radio show, The World Football Programme.

Not wanting to demonstrate my spectacular ignorance in case it was a common fact, I held back the one burning question on the tip of my tongue: Who are the Matildas?

After that meeting, I found out a little more, but had no inkling that this team, the Matildas, would be a defining presence for close to the next 20 years of my life.

After eking out what little publicly-available information there was on the team, it was unfathomable as to why there was not more of an understanding of who they were.

You see, I had been a football fan since becoming completely enraptured with the French men's team in 1998: the elegance of Zinedine Zidane and Lilian Thuram, the commanding presence of Marcel Desailly, and the emerging elegance of the greatest striker of all time, Thierry Henry (you will never change my mind).

In my first forays in football media, it never occurred to a more naive me that women's football shouldn't receive equal attention.

Why couldn't they receive the column inches, the live matches with panel discussions of every minutia of the game, the magazine covers and the sports reports on news broadcast. The highlights shows and the fantasy league teams or just noting their goddamn existence. Why couldn't they be valued as athletes in every sense of the word and everything it entailed?

With the advent of digital and social media, it became apparent that there was no reason why I couldn't be the one to provide that coverage.

It wasn't hubris: it was born of the example of a mother who just rolled up her sleeves and did what need to be done. Of a childhood where the starting point was capability.

The defining moment was Australia's run at the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup where they won their first ever World Cup match and made the quarter-finals for the first time.

From there, I was all in.

2008 saw the start of the W-League, which is when I decided to start up The Women's Game website. For the next decade, it would be a passion project that completely changed my life.

It would be meeting lifelong friends like long time Matildas photographer Joseph Mayers, Steph Brantz, Alicia Ferguson, Kieran Thievam, Anna Harrington, Sam Lewis, Meg Linehan and Steph Yang.

It would be plotting the path for greater coverage with Sarah Groube, Danielle Warby and Cheryl Downes with incredible support of some of the most unsung heroes of this game; Lachy, Shell, Angela, Nicole, Emily, Rachel, Beverley.

It would be learning from and striving to be worthy to continue the legacy of the pioneers of the game like Heather Reid, Rae Dower, Julie Dolan, Leigh Wardell, Julie Murray, Melissa Barbieri. To humbly being invited to brush shoulders with an illustrious Matildas Alumni group that fought for the women's game under the shadows of darkness, waiting for the day the lights would be turned on.

It would be an unexpected embrace into the Matildas family through the warmth of Tony Polkinghorne and his family, the laughter and adventure with the Kerrs, Van Egmonds, Foords, Logarzos and McCallums as we criss-crossed the globe together.

It would be encouragement and advice from a wide variety of media professionals – Les Murray, Debbie Spillane, Tracey Holmes, Mark Jensen, Adam Mark, Ben O'Neill, Ricardo Piccioni, Carlo Kasparian, Pete Filopoulos — who shared their knowledge so generously and opened doors in a way that I still wonder if they were a little crazy.

And the bosses of the regular job – Paul Fitzpatrick, Graham Read and Kevin Arkwright – who were unbelievably accepting in providing me with time off to attend tournaments, press conferences and matches with barely a raised eyebrow.

It would be travelling to places 10-year-old me could never have fathomed — Japan to Cyprus, Vietnam to Brazil, France to Canada, China to Mexico — and along the way, meeting incredible people in the global women's football community who shared a similar mission in their own countries as we all toiled away in our own parts of the world to grow the game. It would be World Cups, Asian Cups, Cups of Nations, Algarve and Cyprus Cups and Olympic Games.

It would be the feeling of being truly blessed to have a front-row seat to the incredible stories and journeys of the women of the game; their sacrifice, frustrations, joys, fights and unequivocal conviction that all women be treated with equal respect. Watching their full careers develop from unknowns, to debuts, heart shattering injuries, retirements and comebacks, weddings, engagements and now children.

And all along the way, it was only about this beautiful, crazy, magical game that had so much potential if people could just see it. As Tony Gustavsson now says: it was asking, cajoling, pontificating and encouraging people to just see the same picture of the future.

It hasn't always been easy. Some of the tours were lonely, travelling on my own and wondering if anyone really would care if this tweet was sent, this article was published, or this photo was posted. Then there is the self-doubt that constantly stalks: the questioning of whether you are making a difference or are the right person for that job or waiting to be recognised as an impostor in the midst, the cuckoo in the nest.

In the end, all that could be swept aside when following my North Star: the love of the game.Ffor that girl that sees women in public life and realises her own power, and for giving people the answer to that question, who are Matildas?