Shakan Pitters on West Brom rejection, new goals and a British title shot

Pitters (back row fourth from left) played for West Brom until he was 16

"It was my first disappointment in life. A feeling of something being crushed."

Shakan Pitters thought a life in professional football beckoned until the day he was called into a room after training and the dream died.

The goals he had scored for West Bromwich Albion for six years would now just be childhood memories to cherish, not the start of bigger things.

Aged 16, the ruthless competitiveness of professional football had broken his heart. Now, 15 years on, his dreams in the boxing ring have reached a similarly pivotal moment as he prepares for a shot at the British light-heavyweight title on Saturday.

A win over Nottingham's Chad Sugden would not only secure the coveted Lonsdale Belt handed to British champions but would open the door to bigger fights and career-defining nights.

Such success was what Pitters had started visualising for his life on the football pitch, aged 10, when he was picked up by West Brom.

"It was great to put on the West Brom shirt," Pitters tells BBC Sport. "You see these Premier League players at the club in the same kit you have on.

"I looked at players like Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and David Beckham back then and I wanted to be part of the path they had followed. It was the dream.

"I honestly thought I would be OK. When it was my time to leave, it felt like my world came to an end."

Thousands of young hopefuls feel the sting of rejection by elite clubs. For Pitters, the moment came in a nondescript room at the training ground, and he says he felt numb on his tram ride home.

"Me and my older brother were just sat in this room when they spoke to us and it was heartbreaking," adds the English light-heavyweight champion. "I had given my heart and soul.

"Football is a hard sport to get seen in individually and scouted. To go down the ladder again and try and get scouted for a big team, I'm not saying it couldn't have happened but I didn't have the same feeling for the sport.

"Football clubs crush many dreams but they are just doing their job. I have no issue with West Brom. That decision has made me a boxer."

'Dad showed me the way'

Pitters spent years working after his release by West Brom before beginning to take boxing seriously in his early twenties

After leaving West Brom, the routine of working for charities and weekend partying wore thin for Pitters. By his early twenties the need for a sporting focus took him back to the boxing gyms he had frequented as a child, when he watched his father Colin train for professional bouts.

Pitters and his brothers had been known to join their dad on pre-dawn training runs and he says it was that, rather than life in a football academy, that first showed him what was needed to succeed in sport.

The birth of his daughter in 2016 further focused his mind on a sporting future.

"When she was born I thought I have to get my life together," says Pitters, who turned professional a year after becoming a dad. "She has always been my reason for boxing.

"I want to be the man she looks up to. I don't like her in the gyms but she has her own little gloves now and will sit and watch me spar. She tells whoever I've just sparred that 'my dad just beat you up'.

"My dad instilled in me an appreciation for training and running. All these things rub off on my daughter a bit."

Pitters, who has won all 13 of his fights to date, gave up his job with a courier company last year to operate as a full-time professional. He now has a strength and conditioning trainer, sports therapists and high-quality nutrition on tap, while a new deal with promoter Mick Hennessy means Saturday's bout with Sugden will be broadcast free-to-air on Channel 5.

'I believe in me'

Of the countless young footballers let go by their clubs, not many manage to make it to the top of another sport.

Curtis Woodhouse reached British-title level after clocking hundreds of appearances in England's top leagues for teams including Sheffield United and Birmingham City, and stared down plenty of doubters who felt he had entered the sport too late.

"I've had it all with doubters and when I started boxing there was always someone throwing shade on it with negative thoughts," says Pitters.

"I'm sure if Mike Tyson said when he was getting bullied as a kid that he'd have been world heavyweight champion people would have laughed at him.

"The same applies for me. I believe in me.

"West Brom were a part of my journey and I don't resent what happened. It has made me the man I am today. I am in it to be great and be at the top of my division so this is where it all starts."