Soccer's March madness let up long enough yesterday for three First Division matches -- the first this month -- to start.

But it was only a brief respite as the sporting soap opera which, in the absence of actual action, has provided the entertainment over the past month, returned for an omnibus edition.

Two of yesterday's fixtures, at Southampton Oval, where Rangers beat Somerset Trojans 3-1, and at Bernard Park, where Dandy Town dismissed North Village 3-0, actually ran the requisite 90 minutes.

But the Rangers game was delayed for several minutes in a row over the wearing of gold ribbons as a symbol of fair play, while the match at White Hill Field, where Devonshire Colts were playing Wolves, was abandoned two thirds of the way through in a bizarre numbers game.

A Somerset official held up proceedings at Southampton as he tried to persuade referee Irven Simmons to cancel the match because the Rangers players were not appropriately attired.

Sure, they had on their regulation blue strip, but unlike Trojans' players, they were not wearing gold ribbons in support of non-violence as requested by representatives of several clubs at a meeting last Thursday.

Meanwhile, at White Hill Field, Wolves players were split on whether to unite with their associates from Boulevard, Hamilton Parish and Devonshire Cougars, who all boycotted fixtures last week in the aftermath of the BFA executive's decision to scrap a round of games in response to escalating violence in the sport.

Such was the disagreement that the team finally took to the pitch 25 minutes late with the required quota of seven players. Two more boosted them to nine, but at half-time it was discovered that two of the original starters were ineligible. When one player went off injured early in the second half, referee Anthony Mouchette was forced to call a halt.

In the one match to go ahead without too much ado, Dandy Town made a fist of keeping the title race open, beating third-placed North Village convincingly.

But with only one game apiece to go in a season now truncated to 17 matches, even a win would only put them level on points with Vasco, who have a vastly superior goal difference.

The last First Division matches were played on February 28. The following week, Colts took on Boulevard in the now infamous FA Cup semi-final abandoned after the latter team's Haile Outerbridge threw a bottle at referee Mouchette when he was sent off. That was the final straw for officials at the BFA who, exasperated by a series of incidents this season, responded by cancelling last weekend's round of fixtures.

Boulevard then withdrew from their Friendship Trophy semi-final against Vasco and again from their league match against the same opponents on Friday night.

They cited the need for "more dialogue'' and the inclusion of players in the decision-making process, as well as solidarity with players from Hamilton Parish -- already relegated -- and Devonshire Cougars, now almost certain to join them in the Second Division, who called off their clash five minutes before the kick-off at Devonshire Rec the previous night.

At the same time, representatives of a number of clubs were meeting privately in a room across the road at CedarBridge Academy where, according to a statement issued afterwards, a number of intitiatives were discussed aimed at solving the issues plaguing the sport. But they refused to comment further on what these initiatives might be.

Instead, the "extremely productive and positive'' meeting called on players to wear gold ribbons for the rest of the season "in support of non-violence and fair play''. Vasco coach John Rebello's comment on Friday night that "not all the clubs support this'' seemed to be borne out as only two of the sides involved in yesterday's fixtures -- North Village and Somerset -- took the pitch appropriately attired.