Pleace, born in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, spent his childhood in the docks[1] and began boxing aged 12. He won the schoolboy and youth national titles in 1945 and 1947[2] before winning the 1956 and 1958 Welsh ABA light-heavyweight championships.[3]
He was selected for the 1958 Welsh team[4] for the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, Wales, where he competed in the heavyweight category[5] and won the bronze medal.[6] The Welsh boxing team secured six medals from ten weight classes.[7]
After he retired from fighting, he coached his younger brother Dennis and worked in the shipyards as a boiler maker. He emigrated to South Africa for four years in the 1970s but returned to Cardiff and Llandaff, where he ran a number of pubs. He also opened two Cardiff gymnasiums with his father.[1]
