The Celebrity Apprentice was a tough gig, but it was a mere warm-up to Shane Crawford’s next job. Sue Smethurst discovers the family man behind the television and footy star.
Behind the scenes of the boardroom bust-ups and charity challenges of last year’s hit TV series The Celebrity Apprentice, Shane Crawford was secretly preparing for the biggest challenge of his life.
He wasn’t scheming to overthrow his reality rivals, or plotting a mutiny of the TV show that had the nation glued to its seats. Instead, he was snatching every spare minute off-camera to swat up on survival strategies for the arrival of twin boys.
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“When we finished filming each day, I went back to the hotel room and locked the door. There was no mucking around. The only person I would let in was Pauline Hanson because she brought me lemon meringues!” he says with trademark cheekiness.
Joking aside, it takes a lot to make Shane Crawford cry, but get the former footballer talking about his family and fatherhood and you’ve hit the soft spot that always raises a lump in his throat.
The AFL champion turned TV star is unashamedly emotional as he proudly shows off the latest additions to the Crawford clan, precious twins Jack and Harry, who were making their presence felt at their first official photo call.
“This is what life is all about,” he says of the tiny babies nestled in his arms. “Fatherhood is my greatest joy. I love being a dad and my life now is all about my family. I love being around the boys. I couldn’t imagine my life without my kids.”
After several miscarriages, Shane and his long-term partner, Olivia Anderson, were ecstatic when they discovered last May that they were expecting their third child, a brother or sister for sons Charlie, five, and Ben, three.
“We were really happy to have baby number three. We just weren’t expecting babies three and four in one go!”
And at 12 days old, identical twins Jack Anderson Crawford and Harry James Crawford, who have just spent their first nights home from hospital, have already made an indelible mark on their lives.
The reality of a nursery filled with special feeding mats, twin cots, twin baby rockers and an endless supply of nappies, bottles and blankets seems a world away from the glitz and glamour of his football and TV career. Yet it is here, off-camera, surrounded by his family, where his heart is truly at home.
“When we found out we were having twins, we were told that it’s beautiful to have one child, but twins are something else altogether.
“There’s a whole new dimension to twins because of the special bond they have and I think now that we have them home it’s really dawning on me what an amazing thing this is for all of us.
“When I was playing footy, footy meant everything to me, but it’s not a patch on what fatherhood brings, nothing compares to this.”
Shane Crawford made his name carving up the footy field, a 305-game veteran with a swag of accolades to his credit, including a premiership with his beloved Hawthorn Football Club and the league’s most coveted prize, the Brownlow medal.
Shane and Olivia had made no secret of their desire to expand the family. With no history of twins in the family, the possibility of twins and indeed twin boys was the last thing they imagined.
“Olivia has always wanted a girl and I was hoping we’d have a girl so I had someone left in the family to look after me when I’m old because I know the boys won’t!” Shane muses. “So it was a bit of a shock to learn we were having twins.”
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Admittedly, it took a little while for the news to sink in, even after Olivia came home from the first check-up to confirm her pregnancy and said, “They’re both fine”.
“It didn’t really register at first,” Shane says, “then she handed me the scan and I was like …what!”
Read more of this story in the February issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
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