She drives dozens of miles a day for a living and is a regular in the pulpit as a volunteer church minister.

But dedicated Jenny Corkett thinks nothing of getting behind the wheel for a round trip of up to 200 miles for a very different form of devotion.

The 63-year-old bus driver from Swindon has supported non-league football side Sutton United all her life.

The South London club are currently eighth in the National League as they pursue hopes of promotion to the English Football League.

Jenny, from Westlea, has supported the side since being taken to her first game by her dad at the age of five.

“It just clicked. Not many girls went to football at that time. But I was just taken by it. I’ve sold programmes, I’ve been on the gate. It’s in my blood.”

Nearly six decades on, she aims to get to at least a third of the tight-knit club’s games every season – even if it means there are times when she gets little sleep.

On Wednesday of last week, she was up at 4.20am to begin her early shift with Go South Coast – having got in at 11.45pm after a trip to Sutton to see their first home National League game against Barnet.

“The worst-case scenario is it takes me three and half hours to get back. It’s a 200-mile round trip, and I knew I was going to get back late. But there’s no way I’d have missed it.”

She has supported the club whose nickname is the Us throughout a life that has taken her away from her native South London to a 23-year stint in the RAF.

Jenny ended up based at RAF Lyneham and decided to set up home in Swindon.

If she’s free and Sutton aren’t playing, she would rather watch semi-pro sides such as Chippenham Town or Swindon Supermarine than head for the County Ground.

She says there’s something special about non-league football.

“Ours is an amazing football club. It infects you. It’s a real community club – I knew the chairman when he and I were both schoolkids. Everyone’s on first name terms. Not many fans get to chat to their team’s players like we do.”

Jenny is a Methodist local preacher, and tries to ensure she isn’t taking a service the morning after a game that will mean a late Saturday finish.

She has talked to players about religion and says: “A lot of them have a strong faith.”

She has mixed feelings about United’s hopes of promotion to the EFL.

“Hand on heart, we’re happy in the Conference (the old name for the National League). We don’t want to be struggling against relegation or to go down, but the Conference is a fantastic league.”

United have always had a reasonably high profile, with their defeat of then top drawer opposition Coventry City in 1989 still one of the best-known FA Cup giant-killing moments.

Jenny managed to make it back from Germany, where she was stationed with the RAF at the time for that game, and she has also witnessed every one of United’s Wembley appearances.

Chicken pox forced her to miss the next round clash, when Sutton were thrashed 8-0 by Norwich City – and the players signed a get well card for her.

Two years ago, the club knocked out three league sides to reach the fifth round of the cup, before losing 2-0 to Arsenal in a game remembered for a stunt in which their 23-stone, 46-year-old reserve goalie Wayne Shaw ate a pie in the dug-out.

But Jenny finds it almost impossible to pick out her best Sutton United moment.

“There are too many,” she says.