UNLESS you’ve been a practising bona fide hermit, you can’t have failed to notice that eating up time like Usain Bolt swallowing up the 100 metres is the impending arrival of the Olympic Games.

London 2012 is inching nearer to the starting gun. And also creeping ever higher are increasing expectations of home success.

Targets of various medal hauls have been broadcast, especially on the back of healthy Great Britain conquest in the Beijing Olympiad of just over three years ago.

Team GB wants more, much more and there’s little surprise in that given the lengthy and not inexpensive campaign to get the Games back on these shores for the first time since 1948.

Outstanding candidates are in pole position or progressing in the right direction, so there is a genuine conviction that Team GB might not only match the achievement of China in 2008, but also surpass it.

However, in the interest of fair play is it time now for us to act the part of more than just gracious hosts and forego the actual chance of a medal?

There have been dark mutterings already about the manner, method and meaning behind getting a representative GB team to participate in the Olympics football competition.

Fearful of a dilution of their independence, the respective Football Associations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have demurred at the notion of a united GB team.

In contrast, the English FA have blithely sailed on and even announced the team manager for next year’s squad, the current England Under-21 coach and England playing legend Stuart Pearce.

For good measure debate has increased as to who might actually play in the “home” team with the likes of Wales sensation Gareth Bale and England talisman Wayne Rooney suggested as potential squad members.

And let’s not forget – as if anyone could on planet football – a certain D Beckham, quite possibly a peer of the realm before the first ball of the next Olympiad is kicked, has been mooted as the team GB captain.

He has made no secret of his desire to be involved and you do get the fact that he would be immensely proud to do so, irrespective of the massive hike it would undoubtedly afford the world brand named Beckham.

With squads able to include two players over the age of 23 then there is a realistic chance that Messrs Beckham, Rooney and Bale could all appear in the team, and while no guarantee of success, it would establish the hosts as one of the favourites for a podium place.

In a previous column, I have exhorted the idea of a GB team though recognising how home nation FAs were apprehensive about the erosion of their identity.

But while I want a Team GB to compete and compete well, having the aforementioned trio in harness is taking the push for medals too far.

I’m in total agreement with 400 metres hurdler and genuine Olympic medal prospect Dai Greene. He is not in dispute with the Team GB idea, but is convinced that the ins and outs of a GB football squad will overshadow the myriad of other athletes competing in their respective sports within the five-ringed circus.

It is hard not to sympathise, given the inordinate amount of publicity that the national game generates without the attending hoop-la that goes hand in hand with the biggest sports show on earth.

Harness football to the Olympic bandwagon and the focus of media attention will be colossal. Add no less personalities than Rooney or Beckham, or both, then the London Games could well be the games that the world forgot.

A Beckham led side would be in the spotlight 24:7 and that would surely create an unbalanced sideshow on what the Olympics is all about.

Athletics, cycling, even swimming can no longer be described as paupers in their capacity to provide incomes, but when put into context the rewards from those are dwarfed by that of professional football, or tennis and golf, two other stellar sports where income at the highest level literally hurtles into the stratosphere.

With the imminent introduction of golf to the Olympics it’s feasible the Games could be peopled by brands like Beckham, Rooney, Federer, Nadal, McIlroy and even Tiger Woods.

So at least in the realm of football, let’s lead the way by declaring that the squad for Team GB will be restricted to all players under the age of 23 and barring, say three from the Premier League, must come from the three tiers below the top-flight.

What an incentive that would be for the less-known players.

As hosts we might not win a medal, but at least we will be going some way to restoring some sort of Olympic spirit and attention to a sport which should not overly detract from the main event come ten months’ time.