This then is one of them:

one of those women footballers who drove Daily Record columnist Tam Cowan to rant that Fir Park should have been "torched to cleanse the stadium", declare the female game "a turgid spectacle", and then find himself dropped by the BBC and having to eat his not-so-very-funny words. This is one of them sitting in a pub near Glasgow Green, and, actually, Gemma Fay, goalkeeper and captain of Scotland's women's football team, seems surprisingly unruffled by the words of Cowan.

"People read that kind of thing, there's a bit of outcry, people saying, 'That's terrible, that's rubbish.' Then it dies. For us there's too much going on, too much to think about, to worry about this guy". Nevertheless, Fay is saddened by the comments. Scotland had just beaten Bosnia 7-0 in a World Cup qualifier. "I think it's unfortunate he wrote that after such a positive result," she says, " after some of the best football we've played. There had been such positive vibes about that match.

Those who watched the game live on BBC Alba, however, wouldn't have seen much of Fay, since the ball was so rarely down her end of the pitch.

Tomorrow night, though, brings another chance to watch her, this time close-up, the camera often tight in on her angry, rarely smiling, face, in Rubenesque. It's a television drama described by Heat magazine's TV editor as "one of the sharpest, freshest things I've seen this year".

Fay isn't just a bit-part in this pilot comedy, scripted and directed by Annie Griffin (creator of Book Group and New Town), she is its star, the central character supported by a cast that includes Daniela Nardini, Gabriel Quigley and Dylan Moran.

It's hard to believe watching 31-year-old Fay that she has never acted before. What is startling is how at home she looks on screen, how natural and watchable. Though her mother was a trained actress, she never felt attracted to the profession until now. She recalls that growing up, one of five siblings with two older brothers, it was always "kicking a ball around". Her mother said she could kick a ball before she could walk.

"We grew up in the countryside. I was just running around with my brothers," says Fay. "It's just something I've always done. We were just encouraged to go out and play."

There couldn't be a more pertinent moment for Rubenesque to be broadcast. The drama is a reminder Cowan's attitude, comic or not, is one that lingers in Scottish culture and, more widely, across the UK. There are plenty of people who still believe football is a man's game and women have no place in it. Fay's character Shona is not the captain of her national team but an assistant referee who finds herself put out of a job after a disputed call.

For this, her on-screen father berates her as she leaves the pitch. "That was atrocious," he shouts. "What the hell were you doing out there? You've got no business on that field, lass."

The drama is also about two different cultures, with their own rules, masculinity and femininity, and contrasts the man's world of football with the woman's world of the Foto Finesse boudoir-style photo studio and plus-size modelling. There are plenty of gags about what it means to be feminine. At one point, a rival for Shona's boyfriend's affection shouts: "You're not even a proper woman, with your tracksuit, your trainers, your hairy dog! You're so unfeminine."

Fay's journey into acting began with a casting note. Circulated last New Year by the SFA, it asked for an "athletic female comfortable in male company". Fay, as it happens, was sitting overlooking Bondi beach with a friend and having one of those travelling moments where it seems anything is possible, when she read the request. She recalled: "I said I'm going to do that and I'm going to star in that." So, she sent back an email saying something along the lines of "I'm 31 years old. I'm captain of the national team. I've never acted before. Let me know if you're interested."

Anyone who watches Rubenesque will be aware how clever that casting note was. It sums up so much about the identity of the character Fay plays, and the worlds she inhabits. Shona, after all, is a woman in a man's world; one who finds the world of female primping and pampering alien and bewildering.

Refreshingly, like her character, she seems entirely untroubled by whether she comes across as feminine or not. "I wouldn't say I'm not feminine," she says. "I think I am quite feminine in my own way. But people put their own perceptions on you about what they think feminine is."

However, she notes that "where Shona is in Rubenesque" is where she was herself a few years ago. "I was thinking, how do I connect with women in the sense of make-up and all that sort of stuff. I also think it's something that comes with maturity and a sense of being comfortable in your own skin."

Rubenesque is also a show that's a challenge to media and fashion ideals of the female body. Fay plays a plus-size model. "When I tell people," she says, "They often say, 'Plus size?' Surprise is the reaction but I'm really okay with that, and I'm okay because it does challenge that perception. In reality, in the modelling industry, I'm a plus-size model. In reality in my world, I look all right. I wouldn't consider myself to be anything other than fit and healthy. And I always want to be fitter but that's for my sport. So it's quite interesting to challenge perceptions of what that means."

There are many neat and pertinent gags. When Shona is being persuaded to audition as a model, she is shocked to learn she could earn £5000 a day. "It's the premier league, pal," she is told.

This is, of course, an issue for Fay. Given she is Celtic goalkeeper and national captain, her equivalent in male football would be a high-earning superstar. As it is, in her own premier league, she currently earns nothing through football and works five days a week as a partnership manager for Sport Scotland in an effort to pay off her student loans.

Fay has long been a crusader for semi-professional contracts. She believes the prospect is getting ever closer and notes: "We've started to make a bit of progress and hopefully there will be some announcement soon." That money would make a huge difference. "The players would get basically more time to train, but also more time to rest."

Rest is certainly something that seems to appear little in her relentless schedule, which in the week leading up to the day we meet has included an international match, arranging her god-daughter's birthday party, 7am training sessions, working late until 11pm, and the launch of her television drama. She's not a moaner, though. Indeed, she doesn't seem to believe she has much to complain about. "I love my life," she says.

The middle child of those five siblings - her parents divorced when she was young - Fay confesses to "middle child syndrome". Like her character in Rubenesque, she was always fighting for the affection of parents. "I relate to that whole thing of trying to make your father proud, trying to do something you know makes him proud and just say well done, I love you, you did great."

However, Rubenesque is not something she expects him to watch. "He lives in the Brecon Beacons," she says. "They probably won't even get Sky there." Her mother, the actress, also will not get to see her daughter's television performance. She died five years ago, after seven months battling lung cancer.

If one were to be casting for sporting role-models for young women, it's hard to imagine anyone more inspiring than Fay. Her work schedule is breathtaking. When she was shooting Rubenesque, she broke off from filming to play against Wales, and was learning her lines as she was training.

Yet it's clear where her heart and commitment are. Though she is witnessing some hype build around her television show, she doesn't get distracted. "I think 'That's great.' But I've still got a job and I've still got football, so I don't get myself too involved in it," she says.

lGemma Fay stars in Rubenesque, which airs as part of the Drama Matters season, on Sky Living HD tomorrow at 9pm