'If you're from Doncaster, you want to play for the Belles' - meet Belles lifer Phoebe Sneddon

To do it at the Eco-Power Stadium, as she and her team-mates will do this Sunday, adds an extra frisson of excitement for the 24-year-old midfielder.

To know that she is wearing the same badge that future Lionesses Millie Bright, Mary Earps and Bethany England once wore, and might now be inspiring young girls as she was once inspired, is a huge motivation.

"I’m massively proud,” Sneddon said ahead of the team’s Women’s National League Division One North appointment with Middlesbrough (2pm kick-off) at the Eco-Power Stadium.

"That’s one of the reasons why I’ve never played for another club in this league, other than going to Bentley last year to get some minutes under my belt.

"I love the club, and if you’re from Doncaster you want to play for the Belles.”

Save for a few games to keep up her fitness for a team in Bentley last season while she worked as a teacher down south, and three years playing for the Leeds Beckett University team, Doncaster Rovers Belles are the only team Sneddon has ever known. There wasn’t even a junior grassroots team. Nowadays, inspired by the Lionesses the last few years, junior teams are sprouting up all over the country as the Football Association pours money in. But even as recently as a decade ago, girls football was hard to find, which is why Sneddon went from the schoolyard to the Belles in one move.

"I used to play when I was at school with the lads,” she recalls. “One of my teachers said you should go and trial with Donny Belles. I’d only been kicking a ball in the garden with my brother and just a bit with the boys at school. There was only one other girl who liked football. I never played for a boys or a girls team I just went straight to Belles at 11-years-old. I’ve been dedicated to them ever since.”

A central midfielder – “I can attack but I’m happy to sit in and defend” – she also works for the club, firstly in the gym and now in a new role in fundraising and events.

Still in her mid-20s, and with the professional scope of the women’s game growing into the second-tier Championship, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Sneddon might one day become a professional footballer.

Belles, one of the great institutions of the women’s game may have fallen on hard times, but they are only two promotions away from the Championship.

"I thought it might have passed me by, when previously it was a big motivation,” she says. “There’s some really inspirational players in Belles’ history; Millie Bright, Mary Earps, Beth England. They’ve shown there is the chance to do that and progress that far.

“It would be an absolute dream to play full-time.”

They need to start by improving on their current position of sixth in Division One North. Sunday’s opponents Middlesbrough are fourth.

"It’s great to play at the stadium and a lot of pressure to perform to show that we’re worthy of playing on that pitch,” says Sneddon.

"We’ve had a lot of support from schools in Doncaster and hopefully we can inspire some of the little ones.”

Tickets are £4 adults, £3 14-17 and just £1 for 13 and under.