Living the Dream 60 Years In Cricket and Football

Living the Dream is packed full of funny and lively anecdotes, from the 1960s to today, featuring Ken’ s heroes and mates, stellar moments, behind-the-scenes stories and classic interviews - with people like Don Bradman, Steve Waugh and Warnie through to Brereton, Ablett and Lockett. It includes some 50 photos from Ken's personal collection, a Glossary of classic nicknames and who they belong to, Toasts and Roasts, and an Index that reads like the Who’ s Who of Australian sporting royalty.

Born the year the MCG was illegally watered (1955), Ken Piesse is Australian sports’ master storyteller. Ken has played almost 900 games of cricket and another 100 or so of footy, from Bath and Rotorua to the Gabba, the MCG and the Adelaide Oval. In 46 fun-filled years, he and his wife Susan have toured to the UK (seven times), South Africa and Zimbabwe, the West Indies and New Zealand. They also found time to have and raise a son and four daughters! Ken was President of the Australian Cricket Society from 2006 to 2022. As well as continuing to write and publish, he now works on cruise ships, telling cricket and football stories, tall and true, to sporting fans while sailing the seas. His new memoir Living the Dream (book #89) draws on this lifetime in sport. It tells the story of a sports-mad kid, not good enough to play at the very highest levels but who still achieved above and beyond through his passion, enthusiasm, hard work, and the people he met along the way.

Foreword: Ian Crawford AM Author’ s introduction 1 Meeting with a hermit 2 Baby Bradman 3 Dead man walking 4 Living the dream 5 Sobie & the Stones 6 Scarred for life 7 Demolition man 8 ‘ What’ s this shit, Tolstoy?’ 9 Lessons from the legends 10 Competing like there’ s no tomorrow 11 Back to kindergarten 12 Enter AB 13 A secret comeback 14 Tracking old Bert 15 In Sigley’ s shoes 16 Scoop of a lifetime 17 Ghosting the stars 18 Nugget 19 Dermie 20 Learning to listen 21 Organised chaos 22 Smokin’ Joe 23 A leg-break from heaven 24 Tubby’ s time I viii 25 Ambushed 26 Discovering Steve Smith 27 High society 28 Crossing Don Bradman 29 Thrill of the hunt 30 Tim Tams at Monbulk Last word Acknowledgements Glossary Bibliography Clippings Toasts & roasts Stats Premiership Pics Index