What’s another year is the theme for Stephen Bray

What's another year? Stephen Bray knows the day will arrive when he has to take out the old proverbial six-inch nail and hang up the football boots.

It's as inevitable as spring following winter. Some time it will have to end - but not just yet.

Now 39, the Navan O'Mahonys forward says he will give playing another year and see from there. Another shot at winning honours for the Brews Hill outfit.

Even a brief conversation on the phone with him reveals that the enthusiasm, the enjoyment that goes with it all, the desire, the hunger is still there.

When the mind is willing and the body is able why not? That's the message he sends out.

"It's kind of hard to walk away when everyone is trying to help the club as best they can. If the body holds there's no reason why I can't commit to another year at least anyway," he told the Meath Chronicle.

A factor in his decision to carry on is the reality that because of the pandemic, the GAA season has changed.

Last year restrictions demanded that the season was greatly condensed, it didn't drag on and on and on, stopping and starting like previous campaigns.

A family man who works in IT, Bray says that as long as he doesn't pick up an injury a condensed season can be very compatible with his full-on, busy lifestyle.

However, he also accepts that the shorter club season might not be ideal for others at different stages of their careers.

"The split season has proved to be a success, of course it has, it has narrowed the time frame for giving a commitment," he added.

"I know we are still under restrictions and realistically you don't have to be serious about football until those restrictions are lifted.

"You have to maintain some level of fitness, but because of the need for a family and life balance, the shorter season works for me.

"I might look at it very differently if I was in my early 20s or mid-20s, maybe then it wouldn't work so well, because then I would not be getting enough competitive action or getting enough collective training to improve myself. It's different for me because of the circumstances I am in."

Whatever Bray does or doesn't achieve in the rest of his playing days he can still reflect on a superb career with one of the big highlights the All-Star award he picked up in 2007, the last time a Meath player was honoured in this way.

Bray recalls how he was first brought into the Meath senior set up in 2000 by manager Sean Boylan.

Not that it was all plain sailing from then on. He had to wait until 2005 (the year Boylan stepped down) to make his full championship debut but, he indicates, his very involvement in inter-county football gave him a confidence that helped him fulfil his potential.

"Sean was a big influence in the sense that at 18 years of he saw something in me, brought me into the panel. That all gave me belief in myself that he thought I was good enough for the Meath set-up."

Bray - who was named Meath GAA 'Player of the Year' in 2015 - didn't win a Celtic Cross medal with Meath but he got to All-Ireland semi-finals in 2007 and 2009 and scored 2-1 in the now famous 2010 Leinster SFC semi-final when the Royal County defeated Dublin 5-9 to 0-13.

That was, of course, the last year Meath won a provincial SFC title. All the indications suggest it will be a long time before another Leinster crown is annexed.

The O'Mahonys man is characteristically self-effacing about winning that All-Star.

"The fact that we got to an All-Ireland semi-final that year helped," he stressed.

"There was a few of us from the team nominated so the chance was there for one of us to be selected.

"Did I ever think I would win an All-Star? Probably not, but I did have a good run that year, played well in most of the games, I was happy with my form."

Bray looks at how Meath have fallen down the rankings and while he may not be able to pinpoint exactly why, he is sure of how they will get back up to the top of the pile - by continuing to work on developing the under-age players.

It's vital, he says, for clubs and county teams generally, to sustain a healthy under-age set-up.

"Once Meath continue to work on developing young talent there is a chance of a resurgence.

"We're probably on our way back but it's hard to know too.

"If you are not producing at under-age level you're not going to have the talent pool."

In his club career Bray won four SFC medals with O'Mahonys - 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2015 - and endured his share of disappointments along the way too; crushing setbacks on big championship days.

O'Mahonys spent 2002 and 2003 in the IFC before losing senior finals in 2006 (to Wolfe Tones) and 2007 (to Seneschalstown). They also defeated Dunboyne in the 2005 SFC semi-final but the Brews Hill club were disqualified when they used a substitute too many.

In 2008 it all came right for O'Mahonys with their resounding 2-12 to 0-7 win over Summerhill in the final constituting a truly sweet victory for Stephen Bray and his colleagues. He scored three points in the final with brother David bagging 1-3. His goal came about when Stephen fired goalwards. The ball cannoned off the post and David was there to slot home from the rebound. Afterwards Stephen was presented with the 'Man of the Match' award, the Colum Cromwell Memorial Trophy.

The victory was a special occasion for the Bray brothers and the Brews Hill outfit. "It was the first senior success for that group of players, we were desperate to win a championship. Your first is always, very, very special," he recalls with meaning.

With the last Keegan Cup success achieved in 2015 O'Mahonys are now enduring something of a famine for them.

That, you think, is perhaps another reason why Stephen Bray is once more ready and willing to answer his beloved club's call to arms; to give at least another year for the cause. After all, as Johnny Logan asked in that famous Eurovision Song Contest in April 1980: What's another year?