Jim Scott yesterday

Senior County Board officials were called to Derrytresk late last night to mediate in a stand-off between the club’s committee and Jim Scott, a well known metal-detecting expert from the area. Scott, of no fixed abode, has refused to stop digging until he finds whatever is making his metal-detector ‘bleep like feck’. With the county league not scheduled to start for another two months, time is on the side of the mediators although the hole is now said to be deep enough to comfortably hold a JCB or three tall men standing on top of each other. Our reporter descended into the pit to get Scott’s version of the fall-out:

“I was just dandering about the roads with my trusty metal detector and thought I’d try the Hill’s field as it probably hasn’t been covered before. It was near midnight and I hadn’t detected anything since 2009 so I wasn’t expecting much. Then sure didn’t the thing start bleepin like a bollocks around the middle of the field. I had a spade down the back of my trousers so I started digging. 24 hours later I’m still digging and she’s still bleepin away. I’m not stopping til I find out what’s causing it. There’s talk of some boy Hughie or something who might have buried is savings here. Or maybe it’s the cup from 1955 that no one has seen. I’ll be here a while.”

Derrytresk committee spokesperson, Kieran Fitzpatrick, admits that the situation is critical now.

“Jaysus it’s a farce now. The hole is so deep that all we can see is the shine off his wee baldy head when he takes his cap off. It’s the batteries on his detector that’s causing the bleeping. Wee Jim won’t hear of it though. 2009 is a long time ago but he needs to admit defeat on this one. We’re just afraid he’ll come out the other side in New Zealand or something. Then there’s the hole itself. If we play around it it’s possible but sometime surely someone high-profile like the Hub or Dooher will fall into it and we’ll be in for some claim then. There’s nothing there. All Hughie’s stuff is gone. I know that for a fact.”

With snow forecast for later, officials are hoping he’ll stop the digging and head on.