'He was a joy': Remembering the game's lost great 20 years on.

Everything the Leeds-born talent always wished to do was compete on the baize.

A sporting bug, developed at the age of three with the help of a miniature snooker set on his home's central table in Leeds, would culminate in a pro playing days that saw him secure six significant titles in six years.

Now marks two decades since the popular Hunter succumbed to cancer, days short to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But in spite of the loss of a once-in-a-generation player that went beyond the pastime he cherished, his legacy and impact on snooker and those who knew him endure as strong as ever.

'He just loved it': A Childhood Obsession

"We'd never have known in a billion years Paul would become a pro on the circuit," Kristina Hunter states.

"But he just loved it."

Alan Hunter recounts how his son "showed no interest in anything else" other than snooker as a child.

"He was relentless," he notes. "He would play every night after school."

After persistently asking his dad to take him to a community venue to play on regulation tables at the age of eight, the budding player made the transition from home play with great skill.

His raw skill would be coached by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now defunct club in the Leeds district of Yeadon.

Rapid Rise: The Path to Glory

With his mother and father's requests to do his homework increasingly falling on deaf ears as practice took priority, his parents took the "risk" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully dedicate himself to building a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within five years, their young son had won his maior professional trophy, the Welsh Open of 1998.

Considered one of snooker's toughest events to win because of the lineup featuring elite players only, Hunter won a trio of times, in the early 2000s.

'A Cheeky Charm': The Man Behind the Cue

But for all his achievements in competition, away from the game Hunter's down-to-earth charisma never deserted him.

"He was incredibly composed did Paul," Alan says. "He got on with everybody."

"If you met him you'd take to him," Kristina continues. "Paul was fun. He'd make you comfortable."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had a daughter, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "funny, kind" and "always the last to leave the party".

With his easy charm, handsome features and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new 21st Century.

No wonder then, that he was nicknamed 'The Snooker World's Beckham'.

Courage in Crisis: A Fight Against Cancer

In that year, a year that should have been the height of his career, Hunter was diagnosed with cancer and would later undergo cancer therapy.

Multiple anecdotes from across the professional tour highlight the man's extraordinary commitment to honor obligations to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while going through treatment.

Despite harsh reactions, Hunter played on through the illness and received a standing ovation at The World Championship arena when he competed in the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in autumn 2006, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its best-loved members.

"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "No parent should experience any mum and dad to lose a child."

An Enduring Legacy: The Paul Hunter Foundation

Hunter's true contribution would be felt not in palaces and castles but in local sports centers across the UK.

The charity in his name, set up before his death, would provide accessible training to youths all over the country.

The scheme was so successful that, according to reports, local youth crime rates in some areas dropped significantly.

"The idea was for a scheme to help get kids off the street," one organizer said.

The Foundation helped pave the way for a major coaching programme, which has extended playing opportunities to children globally.

"He would have embraced what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a leading figure in the sport stated.

Always Remembered: A Lasting Presence

Archive videos of their son's matches online help his parents stay "in touch with his memory".

"I can bring it up and I can watch Paul at any moment," Kristina says. "It's wonderful!"

"We like to reminisce about Paul," she continues. "At first it was sad, but I'd rather somebody talk than him not be spoken of."

Although he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's greatest prize is ingrained in the sport's folklore.

The Masters, the competition with which he is most associated, begins later this month. The winner will lift the memorial cup.

But for all his accomplishments, two decades after his death it is Paul Hunter's character, as much his dazzling snooker ability, that will ensure he is never forgotten.