At lunchtime she's meeting up with Portsmouth and England goalkeeper David James for a TV interview for Setanta Sports.

Then she will be whisked off to Nottingham for a tour of the City Ground, where her teammates will try to beat Arsenal in a cup final at the third time of asking.

It's a far cry from the 24-year-old's day job pounding the streets as a postie.

And with 20,000 tickets already sold for the showpiece event in women's football, the size of the occasion is taking some getting used to.

"It's going to be very different from the couple of hundred we get on a Saturday, that's for sure," she chuckles.

"We've got a very young side and it can be hard to keep your concentration. But as long as we play the game and not the occasion then we're in with a shout."

Leeds go into Monday's FA Women's Cup Final as massive underdogs against an Arsenal Ladies team who are reigning European Champions and thrashed Leeds 5-0 in the same fixture two years ago.

The teams clashed again in last year's League Cup Final and the result was a lot closer – Leeds cruelly losing to a 92nd minute winner.

Opportunity

"Hopefully it will be third time lucky," says Jess. "A lot of the players laid a ghost to rest last year and we gave a good account of ourselves.

"We'll just have to see what happens. But I think the opportunity is there and we are good enough to grasp it."

Odds on to finish third in the league to boot, this looks likely to be the most successful season in the club's history no matter what happens on Monday.

Considering the question mark that hung over the club's future when crippling debts forced Leeds United's Ken Bates to axe its funding a couple of years back, it's quite a result.

Mel Vauvelle-Don skippered the very first Leeds United Ladies team way back in 1989.

Now chairwoman, she says the club has done well to bounce back.

The ladies now play at Tadcaster Albion and financial support from Leeds Carnegie and main sponsor Ringway Ford has kept them going.

"It was a huge body blow at the time," says Mel, 40, a saleswoman for a Leeds printing firm.

"We're competing with clubs who have fantastic support from their male counterparts.

"But we all pulled together as a club and got through it."

Mel says the club has changed a lot since her playing days.

"The dedication is just incredible.