TRAVIS BECKFORD had the world at his feet when he won Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker.
But then he got banned from football and three years later ended up in prison.
Beckford – brother of ex-Leeds and Leicester striker Jermaine and grime artist Marci Phonix – stunned Rooney with his tricks and skills in a Stockport car park.
So much so that he was crowned the inaugural winner of the TV competition show in 2008 by the Manchester United and England hero.
Aged just 16, the emotion of the moment took over and he burst into tears.
The victory should have been the kickstart his footballing career needed.
After all, he earned himself a cash prize, a trip to Brazil and the attention of plenty of professional clubs.
Beckford joined the Leeds academy but struggled with the physicality and was left unable to walk for a month with an injury.
That injury sparked a return to West London – where his parents moved him away from after he was stabbed aged 14.
It was also where his late sister Sabrina was in and out of hospital during her battle with Crohn’s disease.
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And an incident while playing for his local team Hanwell Town proved a sliding doors moment in his football career – and his life.
An opponent hit out at the Hanwell captain and a mass brawl ensued.
But Beckford was picked out in the aftermath as the FA handed him a one-year ban.
From there, without football to keep him on the right path, the teenager turned to making money on the streets, including selling drugs... until one day it all imploded.
Beckford, 32, told the Daily Mail: “I thought, ‘How is this happening to me when there were another 10, 12 people involved that weren't banned?’ At that point, I was ready to just turn my back on football.
“I was very upset, I was very deflated about it. I just thought, how could it go from being so good to so bad in the space of six months?
“It was very bad in my area, there were a lot of shootings, murders, stabbings, there was a lot of drug dealing and gang problems,' says Beckford. ‘People I knew got killed.'
“Sabrina always used to say about staying focused and to stop running around the streets or you're going to end up getting hurt or go to prison – but I never really used to listen to anyone.
“I got deeper and deeper into street lifestyle, selling drugs. It turned into conversations with a few of my peers at the time – why are we getting all of these drugs and selling them, why don't we just rob the drug dealers of the money, because they can't go to the police about it?
“That was our mindset: get their money and just leave. It got more and more serious and then, one particular evening, it just went completely left.
“It all kicked off in this house, and a few people in there got hurt. It was a very bad situation. I got hurt, and so did my co-defendant.
“It was one of the worst days of my life. There was knife crime involved, stabbings, it was just a mess, if I'm honest.
“We got arrested shortly after that, there were police helicopters and dogs, it was very serious.”;
Beckford was denied bail and was initially handed a ten-year sentence two days after his 19th birthday.
This was reduced to six years and eight months on appeal and he served two-and-a-half years behind bars.
He started at Feltham Young Offenders Institution but was moved to the “incredibly violent”; Isis prison in South-East London – but was determined to take the time to get himself back on track.
Beckford added: “It was enough time for me to get myself together if I started immediately.
“That's what I started thinking about: what am I going to do, who am I going to be, when I get released?
“All I'd ever known was playing football and being on the streets. Who was Travis Beckford going to be, post-Wayne Rooney's Street Striker, post all this street stuff, post being a local [drug dealer] – who's that going to be? I spent a long time working on myself.
“My sister was dying, I needed to sort my life out. I felt incredibly bad because I was f***ing up, I'd made selfish decisions.
I've managed to change people's perception of what a prisoner is
Travis Beckford
“There's this quote, ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ Even though I was doing bad things, I was doing it for the right reasons. I felt really bad about my mum and my sister, all the people who had believed in me.”;
A visit from Jason Mitchell and Chris Chalaye, who ran music production and radio broadcasting courses in the prison, proved critical.
Mitchell introduced Beckford to BBC Radio 1 DJ Target and the pair reconnected following his release after he gained a place on a BBC apprenticeship scheme.
That in turn led to meeting various others in the music industry and gave him a footing to break into the industry.
Beckford landed another short-term contract with Sony before a full-time job at their Epic Records label and has even worked with the likes of Polydor, Modest Management and Nike.
Now he focuses on his own projects including a platform to help young people break into music as well as a marketing and promotion company that has collaborated with Borussia Dortmund and Anthony Joshua.
Beckford concluded: “I met loads of great people and 95 per cent of them really took to me.
“But some of them heard where I came from, and they weren't happy that the BBC had brought me in.
“They thought, ‘This guy's just been released from prison, there's other kids out there that haven't gone to prison, so why is he getting this opportunity?’
“They made that very known, and it was very uncomfortable at one point.
“But I've managed to change people's perception of what a prisoner is, and now it's got to a point where people are willing to listen.”;
