Candice Warner: ‘It was a very horrific time’
It has been a brutal past 18 months for Candice Warner as she and husband David went through public scrutiny over the cricket ball-tampering scandal — and private heartbreak. For the first time, she opens up about what was happening behind the scenes.
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Today, Candice Warner’s life is a dream. Baby Isla’s recent arrival has “completed” their now family of five. The Warners are building their “forever home” overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Crucially, her husband David is back playing cricket for Australia after a year out of the game.
Add to this Warner, 34, is the Victoria Racing Club’s (VRC) newly minted race day ambassador, “an honour” that she is “super excited” about, and which will see her heading to the Melbourne Cup Carnival for the first time.
“Life couldn’t be any better,” Warner tells Stellar, while her other two children Ivy, five, and Indi, three, run around with her husband David on the beach near their home in Maroubra, in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.
“Life is very good for us,” she says. “We live a very simple life. We love living in the area both David and I grew up in, we love taking our children down to the beach and living a very low-key life.”
“For us, life is about family and we are so blessed to have three healthy girls.”
But it’s no secret the Warners have endured brutal, hellish times over the past 18 months, ones that now make a dreamy day at the beach seem more precious than ever.
Warner, until now, has kept some of the darkest periods of her family’s life very private. But today she is opening up for the first time to discuss the two miscarriages she suffered before experiencing the joy of giving birth to Isla four months ago.
Her first miscarriage occurred in the wake of the “ordeal” of the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa, a week after her husband’s emotional press conference upon his return to Sydney in March last year. Warner then suffered a second miscarriage the following June.
“Looking back, it was a very horrific time,” says Warner. “We had two miscarriages in that time. It definitely took a toll on my body. It was heartbreaking. I thought, “What more can be taken from me?’”
But she refused to wallow in grief and says she was determined to be “super strong” for her two little daughters and husband.
“They needed me the most, and David definitely needed me during that time. I didn’t have time to sit and get upset,” says Warner. “I had to power on, I had to be the strength and the rock of my family.”
Especially since the Warners were more alone than ever before, with several once-close friends disappearing after the international cricket scandal hit.
After it was announced that her husband would be banned from cricket for a year, many of those who had ridden to the highs of life with the Warners, when David, 33, was thumping centuries for Australia and showered in adulation, were nowhere to be found now that the extreme lows had come crashing in.
“We didn’t know who we could trust,” says Warner. “Who we could turn to. A lot of doors shut. A lot of friendships that were there previously disappeared — we soon realised those friendships were just superficial. People who you thought were friends weren’t there when you needed them in those hard times.”
Warner speaks about these experiences without tears. She’s the kind of person that just “gets on with it”. She doesn’t dwell in the past or feel sorry for herself.
“It’s never ‘poor me’ or ‘poor us’,” she says. “The only way we were going to move forward as a family is to go ‘Rightio, this is where we want to be in 12 months’ time and this is how we are going to get there, and this is what we will stand for.’”
So Warner, clearly the linchpin of this family, “powered on”, made a plan and focused on steering them all through some very rocky times.
She tells Stellar that there were some days David struggled to get out of bed. So she would be the one to motivate him to get up and get him to training.
She could see her husband was emotionally suffering by not having cricket in his life — not having the stability of a schedule of training and playing rocked him. Instead she helped him to create a schedule.
“David had never been in a position where there was no cricket. We just didn’t know what the future was going to hold for us,” says Warner. “I made it my focus to get him and our family into a routine again.”
She also says she has an innate resilience, knowing she can get through anything. “Whenever there were hard times over the last 12 months, I soon lifted myself up and acknowledged what I had, which was two healthy kids and a husband who is now at home spending quality time with his family,” says Warner. “I had a roof over my head.”
“I just turned everything around. Rather than being upset and dwelling on what we lost and what we don’t have, I was really appreciative of what we did have.”
As usual, Warner found the silver lining. And once the initial “storm passed”, the girls loved having their dad at home. David was there to do the pick-ups and the drop-offs and ferry his daughters to day care, tennis, dancing and swimming.
“The girls loved having Daddy all the time,” says Warner. “Doing all those things he usually missed out on doing because of cricket. We cherished having him at home. We hadn’t had those days, ever. We made the most of it, having quality time as a family. It was amazing being together.”
And another positive to come from all they went through?
“We now know for sure that nothing will ever break us,” says Warner. “We are a very solid unit. We are a team.”
The strength Warner now possesses wasn’t formed in the hell of last year. No, that strength was formed during a childhood spent on the streets and beaches of Maroubra.
“I’ve always been very resilient and I think it’s got to do with my upbringing,” she muses.
She grew up in a “very working class” family in the Sydney suburb that was “rough” in parts and soon learnt if problems came her way “to suck it up and move on”, rather than mope and grieve.
Her father Michael is 75 and still works for the local council. David’s parents, both in their 60s, also continue to work. Her husband grew up in a Housing Commission estate in the neighbouring suburb of Matraville.
“I grew up knowing and learning that if you want to go places, you have to fight, not literally, but you just have to work hard,” says Warner.
“That’s evident in the way David plays cricket. The way we are as a family, we are fighters. We don’t give up. We come from very solid, working-class families. I think that it built a very strong foundation for us and our little family.
“Family comes first, no matter what. Because of the way we have been brought up to be resilient, tough, strong, never give up, I think that’s been instilled in us — and in our daughters now.”
“We are a team,” she says of her and her husband. So much so, that when they realised that Isla would be due just before the Ashes began, it was “a really easy decision” that Warner would give birth overseas.
“There was no way David was going to miss the birth and there was no way I was going to let him miss a game playing for Australia,” Warner tells Stellar.
“Wherever David is, is where the family is. So we called England home for three-and-a-bit months.”
She was induced and the couple welcomed their third daughter on a Sunday in June, after Australia’s World Cup match against New Zealand at Lord’s.
Prior to Isla’s birth, and after David’s one-year ban was over, he went to India to play in the Indian Premier League (IPL), where his outstanding pre-ban form quickly returned. He would become the season’s leading run scorer.
He followed this up with success in the World Cup, as Australia’s highest run scorer, bagging three centuries, including one just days after Isla’s birth.
Then, however, came the Ashes. It’s no secret it wasn’t the best series for David, who ended the series with an average of 9.5 runs and some outright questioning his position in the team.
But Warner knows her husband will regather — like her, he is a fighter. “I know he will be back,” she says.
“We were there to support him at the games, and when he came and saw the kids, it was to take his mind off things,” she recalls.
“He’s a very hands-on dad. An unbelievable dad. He might have had a bad day, but his whole demeanour changes when he sees the girls. He’s smiling again, laughing.”
Despite being an accomplished athlete herself — a surf lifesaver who used to compete professionally in Ironwoman races across the country — today she is happy just to focus on the home front and her young family.
“I thrive as a mum, my girls are my best friends and very rarely am I not with them,” she says. “We don’t have nannies, I don’t offload them to anyone — we’ve got great support, in saying that, with my mum and mother-in-law close by. I love having my kids around and I would be lost without them. For me, life is about family.”
When Warner told her racing-mad husband David that she would be attending her first Melbourne Cup Carnival this year as a special guest of the VRC on AAMI Victoria Derby Day, he was over the moon.
“It’s quite an honour,” she says. “It’s been on my bucket list — I’ve always wanted to go. I am super excited just to see what it is all about and to just be part of it.”
Not to mention, she adds with a laugh, “It will be great to get out of the activewear and into some race gear.”
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It helps that her husband is obsessed with racing. “It’s rubbed off on us, and a few times we’ve taken the girls to the track,” says Warner.
“Our little girls love getting dressed up and going and seeing the horses. For us, it is a fun outing with our family.”
As the kids finish up at their now almost daily play on the beach, Warner says she is grateful for the “normal little things” in their life.
She hopes the coming year brings success for David on the cricket pitch, sees Ivy enjoying her first year of school, Indi developing her love for her sport and Isla taking her first steps.
The worst of times have made them stronger.
“David and I now look at each other and say, ‘How did we get through that?’” says Warner. “But we did. We got through it. And I doubt we will ever go through anything quite like that again.
“If we are ever in a situation again where we suffer tough times or adversity, we would know how to deal with it.
“If cricket was to end tomorrow, we know how family life would look for us. We are very content with what we have. We are in love and very much in love as a family.
“Life is good.”