F1: "Wouldn't it be great if someone we have cheered, out of the blue, stepped up to the mike and had something to say. Not that it wouldmake a whit of difference. But at least it would demonstrate a spark ofconnection and feeling for what is going on outside the bubble ofprofessional sports", writes Keith Duggan.

Enzo Ferrari woke on the morning of November 11th, 1918, sleeping on a bag of onions in a warehouse.

"I saw a group of workers around a street light changing the bluish bulbs used for the curfew for a bright, white light. That's how I knew the war was over."*

The iconoclast of world motoring was one of five million Italians who fought in The Great War. By the second World War, he had half-heartedly pledged himself to the Fascist movement and moved seamlessly from the production of slick cars to grinding machines that produced ball bearings. His factory was destroyed by Allied raids in 1944.

How starkly his experiences of war contrast with those of Michael Schumacher, the man who is now the globally recognised and adored face of the Ferrari brand name.

There is something deeply dismaying about the German's recent comments clarifying that the glittering, nomadic city of Formula One would continue to travel as ever to its global hot spots regardless of events in Iraq. Maybe it is the fact that Formula One is obscenely wealthy and ostentatious to begin with that irks; why, after all, should the, er, excitement of a Formula One race be in any poorer taste than today's Six Nations game or a Division Two hurling clash?

But Michael Schumacher is one of the most famous sportsmen on earth. Now, this column is convinced that until the German demonstrates his skills in mid-Ulster on a championship Sunday, claims that he is the best living wheels-man remain moot. If Schumacher can set off from Swatragh, for instance, in a Ford Escort at about 12.30 p.m. on the day of a Tyrone-Derry derby and make it to Clones, get parking, find time for a few settlers in The Bursted Sofa and still make it to the stand for the parade, then he may very well be the best driver in the world. That is an argument for another day.

The point here is that the god of one of the most tele-visual and economy-driven sports in the world had nothing to say about what is happening in Iraq beyond the context of his own cocoon. Perhaps that is as it should be. Schumacher is a private citizen who has always been modest in his statements.

But still. It just hammered home the finality of the remove and self-absorption of big-time sports, the unconscious vacuum of privilege in which it plays out its unending dramas. I am not sure fully why but I know I would love to hear some sort of stance taken, some statement of the heart issued by a sporting hero with global sporting influence regarding what is happening in Iraq.

Perhaps it is because there has always been a correlation between sport and war. In Wellington's famous words, "the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton".

At Anfield the other night, it was reported that you could watch the invasion of Iraq live prior to Liverpool/Celtic, an occasion that carried the undertones of a peculiarly Irish love-in. It is well known that the famous Kop end of the ground became so named in 1906 after Ernest Edwards, editor of the Liverpool Echo, observed a mud pile at that end of the ground and said, "That looks like the Spion Kop". The terrace was named in honour of a Liverpudlian regiment who defended a patch of earth of the same name at Ladysmith, South Africa, in 1900. In much the same way did Hill 16 take its name.

There are endless stories of heroes of the sports world who transferred their physical skills and courage and sheer cussedness to contemporary theatres of war but it is probably the apposite stance taken by Muhammad Ali during the Vietnam war that people most identity with now.

Of course, his position was not abstract; he protested against his own conscription and while he was widely denigrated for that at the time, the sense of principle that substantiated his belief has shone through. He may not have even seen active service anyway. During the second World War, baseball stars like Joe DiMaggio signed up but faced no greater threat than a burning from the Hawaiian sun under which he was stationed. But he was involved; he moved among the ordinary minions that in peacetime would cheer him in Yankee Stadium and across the country. Afterwards, they resumed their anonymous jobs and their adulation of him and he married Marilyn Monroe.

Reading and hearing about the sports figures of the past, it is easy to see them as somehow more generous of spirit and grander than those that pre-occupy our leisure hours and relieve us of our cash today. To do so is probably unfair and untrue but the temptation is there. Then, times were more black and white, for good and bad. If Lee Bowyer or any of the other cosseted soccer stars who have disgraced themselves in recent times been in their prime just 60 years ago - the blink of the eye - they would have been fodder for guns. Abominable technology has replaced the equally abominable need and point of massive human armies and thus conscription is a redundant force.

There is no chance that any young Briton will get to dig a trench alongside Stan Collymore. And thank God for that. But that star and many like him would probably find the idea of engaging in such a task alongside ordinary folk preposterous.

In this part of the world we are lucky to have lived through a sustained period of safety and relative affluence and privilege. The bland mindset and aloofness of the sports stars we have "godded up" is probably the best example of the mediocrity that accompanies ordinary times.

Flicking on the television this last few mornings has reminded me of nothing so much as a massive sports tournament, an Olympic Games or a World Cup.

There is the network's sexy logo, there the best action replays and everywhere the sound of voices until something, anything new happens.

Maybe real sports should continue oblivious and unheeding throughout the next few months. But wouldn't it be great if someone we have cheered, out of the blue, stepped up to the mike and had something to say. Not that it would make a whit of difference. But at least it would demonstrate a spark of connection and feeling for what is going on outside the bubble of professional sports.

But the likelihood is that there will be no voice, whether in protest or support, or any sort of cry in the dark.

"It is very difficult for us sometimes," said Michael Schumacher, who will hear the cheering of thousands in Kuala Lumpur this weekend.

Further comment from the high table of Formula One is only likely to occur if the show in Iraq lasts for the duration of the driving season. Things could get ugly for F1. After all, who wants to watch a car race when you can watch a whole damn war?

*From Enzo Ferrari, Yellow Jersey 2001 by Richard Williams.