THERE aren’t too many footballers with a resume like this.

League life member, two-time premiership captain, five-time league best and fairest, five-time All Australian and 299 games of top-tier football.

These are just a few of the many accolades Melbourne community manager Debbie Lee has marked up in 23 years of football.

This Saturday, Lee will line up for St Albans Spurs in her 300^th game of senior women’s football – only the third woman in the country to ever reach the milestone.

When you consider that a typical Victorian Women’s Football League (VWFL) home and away season is just 14 games long, Lee’s achievement becomes even more impressive.

Lee started her football career as a 17-year-old at the now-defunct East Brunswick Scorpions in 1991 and won the Lisa Hardeman Medal for best afield in their winning grand final that year.

In 1993, at just 19, Lee left the Scorpions and founded the Sunshine YCW Spurs (now St Albans Spurs), the first women’s football club in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

Known as a ferocious competitor on the field, the midfielder then cemented her position as the game’s premier player with four consecutive Helen Lambert Medals (VWFL best and fairest) from 1993 to 1996.

Melbourne-listed midfielder Bree White praised her St Albans premiership teammate for her leadership and uncompromising approach to football.

“Deb has that leadership and she’s always winning hard balls, contested balls when we need it, she always seems to bob up,” White said.

“Her strength is getting the ball, getting it to somebody and getting it when we’ve needed it.

“When we won the 2004 flag, she was best on ground and you could see it in her face that we weren’t going to lose that day.”

St Albans skipper until 2004, Lee represented Victoria 15 times and also captained her state five times, in a career which saw both the VWFL best first year player and AFL National Championships best player medals named in her honour.

While Lee’s playing achievements are incomparable, it’s her work off the football field that has earned even greater respect from the sporting community.

President of the VWFL from 2004 until 2012, Lee worked to increase the league’s profile and make women aware of the opportunities available within football.

Through her position as Community Manager at the Melbourne Football Club, Lee has developed the club’s relationship with the VWFL while consistently pushing for greater recognition of the women’s game.                      

In 2013, her hard work came to fruition with the creation of the inaugural AFL Women’s Draft and the subsequent exhibition match between Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs, an event set to become an annual fixture on the AFL calendar.

White, who was selected by the Demons at pick 23 in the inaugural draft and retained for the 2014 game, credits Lee’s hard work and drive for her opportunity to play women’s football at the highest level.

“Without her vision and where she wants women’s football to be, there’s no doubt we wouldn’t have had the draft game for the last two years,” White said.

“She always says she’s giving back to football but I think she’s given a lot more than what she takes credit for.

“She just wants girls to experience footy at the highest level they can and she pushes that to as many people as she can.”

Through Lee’s own persistence and hard work, women’s football has reached a point where a future national female competition appears a given, rather than the pipedream it once was.

“It’s just coming to the forefront now with the Bulldogs and Melbourne and what they’re doing for women’s football – ‘pioneer’ is the best word to describe her,” White said.

On Saturday, Lee will take her influence back to the football field at St Albans, playing alongside White and against an Eastern Devils side appropriately featuring Melbourne-listed players Meg Hutchins and Lou Wotton.

The game kicks off at Kings Park Reserve at 2pm.