Suki Hobson, who has been nominated for theFootball Woman of the Year award, which will be announced at Thursday's GrandFinal Comedy Debate at Crown, has been involved in the sports fitness industrysince 1999.

Essendon’s Strength scientist is the only female inany code of football in the country working in her role.

Born in the United Kingdom, Hobson studied a degreein sports science and physiology at the University of Leeds before taking akeen interest in a module on the scientific principals of training in her finalyear.

She spent a day at Super League team Leeds Rhinos,where she saw how the aspects of her sports science education came together inone role.

""It encompassed everything I was studying, allmy interests,"" she said.

She was keen to pursue a career in the sportsscience industry, and got her start when tenacity paid off.

She rang Leeds and boldly asked to speak to thecoach - a request that surprised both herself and then-coach Graham Murray whenshe was actually put through to his office.

""I was 19 or 20. Today, it would be likeringing up Essendon and asking to speak to James Hird,"" she said.

""I got put through and he asked, 'How did youget put through to me?', and I told him, 'Maybe you should ask your secretary'.

""But he had a good laugh and said I could comedown for the day.""

It was there she met strength and conditioningcoach Edgar Curtis, and where she sat in the corner of the gym and realisedthat sort of job was what she wanted to do with her life.

She was given the opportunity to turn up at theclub each day at 6am to work with the younger players, which was something sherelished, before she served ""basically an apprenticeship"" withProzone, a performance analysis company in Leeds.

While she was there, she was also volunteering in arange of coaching roles and spent all her spare time with strength andconditioning coaches from various sports.

Hobson worked with athletes from sporting clubssuch as Manchester United, Arsenal and the English soccer team in the daysbefore GPS tracking really became prevalent.

From there, it was off to the English Institute ofSport (EIS), where she worked with athletes from a range of different codes.

But a decision to pursue warmer pastures saw herseek a job in Australia, and after contacting Kelvin Giles, ""the godfatherof strength and conditioning"", Hobson was offered the chance to relocate.

""He had ignored my first email so I emailedagain … he responded with, 'There's a job for you if you're good enough',""she said.

""I had no idea if I'd be good enough, but Ithought, what's the worst that can happen?""

""I'll have a fantastic holiday in Australiaand travel around.""

Giles was the head of strength and conditioning atthe Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS), and Hobson had been advised by atriathlon coach at the EIS he was in the top 10 of his field in Australia.

""I had asked him to put together a list of whohe considered to be in the top 10, and I researched each of them and choseKelvin to contact,"" she said.

""It's rare you find practitioners who haveachieved in both Olympic and professional sports, and he was the standout tome.""

The QAS was where she would remain for the nextseven years, after earning a role there.

""Institutes are wonderful because you've got coachesfrom all over the world,"" Hobson said.

""I worked with the Chinese speed skatingcoach. We caught one word in three.

""But, it was amazing, and I was just so surethat all her athletes were going to break because they were doing so much workand they didn't.

""Those are things you just don't know untilyou see them.""

Her work at the academy saw her delve into therehabilitation of athletes to have undergone knee reconstructions.

Carlton forward Jarrad Waite was one AFL player whosought her counsel as he worked his way back from surgery in 2009.

She presented on her theories and experiences inknee rehab at a strength and conditioning conference in 2008, which is whereshe first met Robinson.

""We just talked and talked. You find peopleyou have parallels with and you share the same principals andphilosophies,"" she said.

""He's very clever, a smart man. He bought medown to Geelong to work with Josh Hunt and Adam Varcoe, and then it was quitesimple.""

Hobson joined Geelong at the end of 2009, and thenEssendon last year.

She's weathered the storm that was the Bombers'injury-hit year, and believes the review that is looking at the depth of thecrisis and statistics ranging back over the past decade can only be a positivething.

""We're looking at pioneering things to helpwith how we're going to deal with this problem because the main probability ofhaving a soft tissue injury is having a previous one,"" she said.

""We've got to do things better than everyoneelse, and we've all got thoughts and ideas on that.

""I'm very excited to see how that unfolds overthe next year and whether that works.""

Hobson isn't exaggerating when she says theBombers' fitness department faced a hugely challenging year.

Hobson, along with high performance manager DeanRobinson and their team, was confronted with an unprecedented amount of softtissue injuries that simply wouldn't go away.

Every time the Bombers seemed to take a stepforward, they lost one - or more - players to some sort of muscle strain.

The club is no reviewing what went wrong,andhas been since January with evidence suggesting the injury problem ran deeperthan this season alone.

""We've had four times the amount of injuriesyou'd normally have so we've had to work essentially four times as hard in lotsof ways to get that done,""

Hobson said.

""Nothing stopped it. We're all at a loss. Thisis none of our first jobs - we've all been around for a decent amount of timeand we just couldn't stop it so we had to ride it out and get through it.

""I think we had our first game a while backwhere we didn't have an injury, and our runner did a calf. It got to the pointwhere it was like, 'What can you do?'

""We did absolutely everything and it drove allof us absolutely crazy, as you can imagine.""

This season wasn't the first time Hobson andRobinson worked together.

Before Robinson took up a role at Gold Coast forseason 2011, the two worked together at Geelong where Hobson had her firstfull-time job at an AFL club.

Other nominees for the Football Woman of the Yearinclude Jo Del Prete (chair of the East Perth District Football DevelopmentCouncil), Belinda Duarte (director of the Korin Gamadji Institute), CherylCates (president of the South Australian Women's Football League as avolunteer), Diana Taylor (director of the Geelong Football Club), and PetaSearle (assistant coach for VFL team Port Melbourne).

Previous winners of the award include the late JillLindsay, Sue Alberti, Irene Chatfield, Debbie Lee and Lesley McGrath.