'Paul was fun': Reflecting on the sport's taken talent two decades on.

All the young snooker player always wished to do was play snooker.

A sporting bug, caught at the age of three with the help of a miniature snooker set on his parents' coffee table in his Leeds home, would culminate in a pro playing days that saw him win six significant titles in a six-year span.

The present year marks 20 years since the popular Hunter passed away from cancer, just days before to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But despite the passing of a phenomenal skill that rose above the pastime he cherished, his enduring mark on the game and those who knew him persist as strong as ever.

'His passion was clear': The Formative Years

"It was impossible to foresee in a billion years the boy would become a professional snooker player," Hunter's mum says.

"Yet he just adored it."

Hunter's father remembers how his son "cared little for anything else" other than snooker as a young boy.

"He never stopped," he says. "He would play every night after school."

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a community venue to play on regulation tables at the age of eight, the young Hunter made the jump from table top snooker with remarkable ease.

His raw skill would be developed by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from the adjacent city, at a now defunct club in the area of Yeadon.

Metoric Ascent: The Path to Glory

With his family's urging to do his homework regularly going unheeded as the game dominated, 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 was a resounding success. Within five years, their still-teenage son had won his maior professional trophy, the Welsh Open of 1998.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the involvement of only the top competitors, Hunter won on three occasions, in consecutive years.

'A Cheeky Charm': A Legacy of Character

But for all his triumphs in the sport, away from the game Hunter's approachable nature never left him.

"He had a great temperament did Paul," Alan says. "He got on with everybody."

"When encountering him you'd enjoy his company," Kristina continues. "He was enjoyable. He'd make you relaxed."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had a daughter, describes him as an "amazing, young cheeky beautiful soul" who was "witty, generous" and "typically the final guest at the party".

With his effortless appeal, handsome features and candid way with the press, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new 21st Century.

No wonder then, that he was nicknamed 'The Beckham of the Baize'.

A Brave Battle: His Final Years

In the mid-2000s, a year that should have marked the zenith of his talent, Hunter was told he had cancer and would later undergo aggressive treatment.

Multiple stories from across the sporting world attest to the man's extraordinary dedication to keep promises to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while enduring treatment.

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter kept playing through the illness and received a tumultuous reception at The famous Sheffield venue when he competed in the World Championships that year.

When he passed away in the mid-2000s, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its cherished personalities.

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

A Lasting Impact: Giving Back

Hunter's true contribution would be felt not in royal circles but in community venues across the UK.

The Paul Hunter Foundation, set up before his death, would provide accessible training to children all over the country.

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

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

The Foundation helped establish the basis for a major coaching programme, which has provided playing opportunities to children all over the world.

"Paul would have loved what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a chairman in the sport stated.

Forever in Memory: Two Decades On

Archive videos of their son's matches via the internet help his parents stay "close to him".

"I can watch it and I can watch Paul whenever I wish," Kristina says. "It's a comfort!"

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she adds. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be mentioned at all."

Even though he never won the World Championship, the widespread belief that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's greatest prize is a part of the sport's legend.

The Masters, the competition with which he is forever linked, starts later this month. The winner will lift the memorial cup.

But for all his successes, a generation after his death it is Paul Hunter's character, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is forever celebrated.