THE sheer professionalism of the Guernsey FC project is staggering.

While the players sweep all before them, some weeks in more convincing fashion than others, the men behind the scenes regularly trump even the on-pitch results which, come the spring, seem sure to lift the Green Lions out of the Combined Counties League Division One at the first attempt.

One week they are setting up an IPhone app, the next it is managing to get their team featured as a virtually real team on a worldwide computer game.

Meanwhile, hundreds of new football fans, all keen to see their new  community club, follow their team via the web and on Twitter, as well as through the Channel Islands media. They are mad for it.

It all seems so easy, which is why there is probably a large dollop of jealousy among some traditional football folk who look at this new upstart and wonder how the heck they can do it?

But easy it is not.

GFC’s directors and backroom team are working their socks off in the knowledge that first impressions are crucial if the project is not only to work financially, but also capture the wider public imagination and set the tone for a long-lasting venture worthy of the 21st century.

Picking a side is the hard bit though and, as we have witnessed in recent weeks, it has become increasingly difficult as the injuries pile up and Tony Vance tries to play ball with the various club coaches he wants to be fair to and, at the same time, maintain a positive working relationship with.

But, as Matt Warren, the injured Guernsey FC club captain, alluded to in these very pages earlier this week in his other role as temporary St Martin’s coach, crunch time is looming.

Very soon, he says, GFC players will have to decide where their priorities lie.

‘Whether the lads decide to play for both teams [Priaulx club and GFC] is up to the individual really because they have to be fully committed for whoever they play for,’ said Warren. ‘With the amount of football they are playing now, players may need to start prioritising and maybe not play as much midweek football.’

But how soon is soon?

My guess is very.

By my reckoning, by the end of November, everyone who is at the nucleus of the GFC squad – probably a dozen or more players – will have ended their personal, diplomatic balancing acts and said their virtual goodbyes to their Priaulx club. They have to for their own good and the team that matters most.

The balancing act might have remained in place a while longer – all season perhaps – had the clubs cared to match Vance in terms of willingness to play ball and the domestic fixture list to be more amenable to GFC.

But, in the main, they haven’t, some clubs foolishly insisting on playing home games on a Saturday afternoon, while key Priaulx League fixtures have been scheduled unhelpfully close to the regular Saturday CCL match-days.

It is more than unfortunate that we face the prospect of seeing the league’s top two sides, North and St Martin’s, being devoid of any core GFC players when they clash under the lights on Friday 25 November, less than 24 hours before the Green Lions host the only side to have taken a point off them this season, Hartley Wintney.

That match will, I guess, signal the end of the politicking by GFC and be the week players finally make the choice Warren talks about.

And it had to happen.

As those behind the original Guernsey United will testify and argued strongly among themselves at the time, the only way to run a team on the national ladder is to have all your players at your disposal and not share them with another, lesser, feeder club.

These players are not machines and not only need to train together on a weekly or twice-weekly basis, they need to be wrapped up in cotton wool to last the distance.

It is true the top players have never had it so good in terms of opportunity and exciting challenges, but their bodies and private time are being strained more than any of their predecessors in the history of domestic football.

They need to look after themselves, be nursed, not slogged to death in the need to win Priaulx League points, or an inter-island cup which long ago lost its old appeal and only continues on the back of helpful fast ferry schedules in the shoulder months of the tourist season.

Like it or not, the Priaulx League clubs are now feeder clubs and they should honourably accept playing that role, which is a key one in terms of development of football as a whole.

I accept it is hard to take, but at the risk of repeating myself, it is no different to say cricket’s English County Championship where the best players are now strangers to their own county members and due to careful management which gets the best out of them, only get to play a handful of games per season.

That does not mean the county championship is a poorer and unworthy competition than it once was. Of course it is not.

In the absence of England players and, due to financial constraints, fewer overseas stars than in recent decades, many more younger English players are getting their chance to shine and are taking those opportunities with both hands.

The upshot is that English national cricket has not been as strong in 50 years and a long line of emerging young players are banging the door down of the national selectors as more and more of them take advantage of the new opportunities to show their skills and develop their games.

It should be no different in Guernsey football.