This was a week when it was expected we could bring the tension of the Ryder Cup a little closer with the players tuning up in various tournaments in the US and Europe. As events unfolded in New York and Washington, the World Golf Championship in St Louis was abandoned, and the players and sponsors donated the $5 million prize fund to a victim relief fund.

Tiger Woods then pulled out of this week's Lancome Trophy in Paris, scuttling his warm-up event, and yesterday the decision was taken to postpone the event for a year.

Sky Sports, missing a significant chunk of its proposed schedule this week, informed us that Jesper Parnevik feared for his life as the hijacked planes slammed into the Twin Towers. Ground Zero was a kilometre from his hotel.

The Swedish Ryder Cup player had been in the city for a meeting with golf clothing designer Johan Lindeberg when the first aircraft struck. Parnevik, with thousands of others, headed north towards Central Park, where he and Lindeberg sheltered with crowds. He stayed there for seven hours before returning through thick smoke to the hotel.

As the magnitude of the event unfolded, Champions League and UEFA Cup matches were postponed. In Britain, the first ball kicked on Saturday was in the Liverpool derby.

Kasey Keller, Tottenham's American goalkeeper, was asked for a television soundbite. A little shaken, he delivered. Horrified. Shocked. "It's something that has been devastating to the whole world and, being an American, a little more," he said.

His manager, Glenn Hoddle, told us: "We've gotta take our daily lives on," adding: "It's only right that this weekend's sport should be played."

President Bush, who was due to play host at a dinner for the American Ryder Cup team before they departed for England this week, spoke from Camp David and echoed Hoddle's sentiments. Referring to the Major League baseball beginning again, Bush hinted at the role of sports in society and its use as a barometer for what constitutes normality.

"It is important for America to get on about its life," he said.

The voice-over on the Sky News report on the first Premiership match on Saturday morning fell where sport regularly falls. The reporter entered the comfort zone and commissioned a cliche for his close.

As a wreath was placed on the Stars and Stripes and Union Jack in the centre circle after a minute's silence at Goodison Park, we were told that this was "the day when football told America 'You'll never walk alone'."

Clever as it may appear to stitch together the circumstances of the deaths of so many Liverpool fans at Hillsborough, the tragedy in New York and the classic Liverpool anthem, it simply wasn't a time for cleverness.

Vincent Browne, when he was editor of the Sunday Tribune, used to rage at sports writers for using language which he believed was inappropriate for the relative trivia of organised games.

The words disaster or catastrophe were taboo. What words would you use, he used to ask, if there were a real disaster or catastrophe? At Heysel Stadium and Ibrox Park and Hillsborough there were real disasters. Memory alone reminds us that words then failed.

It has always been a problem for Sky Sport that, although it has been wonderfully successful in re-packaging sport and selling it in great volumes and at knock-down prices, it has never failed to be seduced by the trite and glib. While it has revolutionised how we watch sport and what we can expect to see, it occasionally falls into a mentality which is fundamentally shallow. That's a shame, particularly in weeks like these when sport loses its heat.

Even then though, sport was still seen to hold a prominent place.

Bush suggested as much. In a country that has just declared war, he urged the continuation of baseball and football throughout to impart a sense of normality to an uncertain present and future.

That suggests football, baseball, soccer, rugby, can help douse the panic, excitement, terror and fears of a nation. It refocuses minds. It discloses a defiance. It suggests confidence in leaders and communicates the message that terror has somehow failed to dominate.

Dignity was everywhere on the channels. Nowhere more so than in Friday's TG4 documentary on the Rosmuc boxer, Seβn Mannion, who ended his professional career in 1990. Mannion came from a townland in the heart of Connemara, and the climax of his career came when he stepped into the ring to face Mike McCallum in his only world title fight.

Mannion lost the bout, but, as in so many of his gargantuan efforts in the ring, he turned out a hero. In one of his contests before he met McCallum, Mannion was struggling and in danger of losing the bout.

"I was tired and in pain. I just wanted the fight to be over," he said. In the 10th round the lights went out - literally. The fight was stopped for some time while the problem was solved and Mannion returned to the ring to win. Afterwards he was taken to hospital with a fractured rib and a collapsed lung. But he got his crack at the world title.

"There were 20,000 in Madison Square Garden. The majority of them were there for me. It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. I wanted to bring the world title home," he said of the McCallum bout. "My only fear was that I might let them down."

Mannion was modest and courageous enough to disclose his fears and TG4 got close to what boxing was about. More importantly, Mannion's career illustrated the value of community and dignity in defeat.

That alone was worth watching.