Perhaps that is partly why the Adelaide Crows' AFLW coach has never discussed her sexuality until now.

Goddard opened up to Samantha Lane in Roar about falling in love with her partner Lydia while on the "biggest journey" of her life last year.

When she first started playing football for Belconnen she would tease the gay players in the team. They would laugh it off, Goddard suggesting they thought "You're gay too, but you just don't know it yet."

Goddard says she was once the most homophobic person she knew, and that it was her own social and religious barriers that stood in the way of accepting who she is.

She even struggled to tell her parents for nearly two years once she accepted herself aged 23. Her family has supported her every day since.

As winless Adelaide look to salvage their premiership defence against the unbeaten Western Bulldogs on Saturday, breaking through those barriers is the best thing she could have done.

"It's great because Lyd knew nothing about football when I met her, because she's English," Goddard told Fairfax Media.

"I found that a bit of an outlet. We didn't just talk footy at home all the time or on weekends when she was around. She's become just great for me to bounce ideas off without her having any politics or football bias.

"She comes over once a month. When she comes over here we always go and do something that's not footy related.

"We always get to go for dinner somewhere nice or go for a bike ride, or just do something that doesn't revolve around footy."

The 39-year-old is still getting the hang of splitting time between football and her partner, as she found out when she was on pick-up duty when Lydia arrived in Adelaide on Wednesday night.

"I said to her 'I'm sorry if I'm a bit late, I've got training, I'll see you in the baggage hall'. She understands."

She understands the role Goddard is playing in a football revolution.

"Only 10 years ago I was standing out at Gundagai on an oval trying to turn the headlights on so the ACT rep side could train with the girls from Wagga," Goddard said.

"Now here we are in a national league that is televised around Australia. It's just unbelievable."

Goddard wishes her maternal grandmother Joan could have seen it - she had vowed to her that she would coach elite women's football just before she died.

It still seems like yesterday the Crows mentor was tucked under a blanket at Jamison Oval or Football Park in Canberra with her paternal grandmother Joyce.

Sometimes she would trade a blanket on the hill for a gig on the Jamison Oval scoreboard that once left a Belconnen trainer having to pull "a huge splinter" out of her finger.

She always watching Belconnen - her father Robert's team - and her favourite games where watching them face Ainslie for the famed "cock of the north trophy".

"It was really funny years later when I became a first grade umpire. In one of my first games I was umpiring a 'cock of the north' game," Goddard said.

"Dad normally goes and watched Belconnen all the time but he couldn't go that day. He didn't want to sit on the hill with all of his Belconnen mates and me make any controversial decisions that would put him in an awkward spot with his mates."

Goddard was once left shocked when her father refused to pay to watch a game she was playing in for the NSW/ACT at the 2001 women's nationals.

Her father refused to pay the $2 entry fee, declaring he wouldn't pay to watch women play before marching straight into the venue.

That's not to say her father wasn't supportive.

"I'm like the only son he never had, except I do have my brother," Goddard laughed.

"Dad's so great, back in the early days he might have been a bit funny about girls playing footy, but he always came. He would always come and watch me play.

"As my career has gone on he's always been there and he has always been supportive of it. If he wasn't supportive he would never have come down in the first place."

While they could talk football from sunrise until sunset, Goddard laughs she "dodged a bullet" when it came to picking a different team to support.

Her father, grandparents and brother are rusted on Collingwood supporters. But the females always held the power in the Goddard household, so Goddard followed her mum and aunty to Hawthorn.

Perhaps that sense of power led Goddard to police work- she was in Thailand following the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 and just over nine months later in Bali identifying bombing victims.

That work is currently on hold as she enjoys "the best job in the world", with her partner supporting her every step of the way.

*Roar details the rise of the AFL Women's league in Australia. This is the story of a movement far bigger than sport – the AFLW has been a game changer for Australia culturally.

Samantha Lane tells the remarkable tales of a group of trailblazers. The book features eleven profiles on the key players and figures behind the AFLW movement, detailing the individual setbacks, triumphs and watershed moments each experienced on their way to AFLW success and stardom.