'Paul was fun': Reflecting on snooker's taken talent a score of years on.

All the Leeds-born talent ever wanted to do was compete on the baize.

A love for the game, caught at the tender age of three with the help of a miniature snooker set on his family's living room table in Leeds, would culminate in a pro playing days that saw him claim half a dozen major wins in a six-year span.

Now marks 20 years since the adored Hunter passed away from cancer, just days before to his 28th birthday.

But notwithstanding the passing of a generational talent that transcended the game he loved, his influence and memory on the game and those who knew him remain as powerful today.

'He just loved it': Early Beginnings

"We'd never have known in a billion years our son would become a career sportsman," Kristina Hunter says.

"Yet he just was passionate about it."

Hunter's father recounts how his son "wasn't bothered about anything else" except for snooker as a child.

"He was relentless," he notes. "He competed 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 miniature games with remarkable ease.

His natural ability would be nurtured by the former world title holder Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now former establishment in the area of Yeadon.

Rapid Rise: From Teenager to Champion

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 focus on carving out a career in the game.

It paid off in spades. Within half a decade, their young son had won his maior professional trophy, the Welsh Open of 1998.

Considered one of snooker's most difficult competitions to win because of the involvement of only the top competitors, Hunter was victorious three times, in 2001, 2002 and 2004.

'A Gracious Competitor': The Man Behind the Cue

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

"He was incredibly composed did Paul," Alan says. "He was liked by everybody."

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

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had a child, describes him as an "amazing, young cheeky beautiful soul" who was "witty, generous" and "never the first to depart from the party".

With his natural likability, boyish good looks and honest interview style, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new millennium.

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

A Brave Battle: Illness and Resilience

In the mid-2000s, a year that should have signaled the peak of his powers, Hunter was diagnosed with cancer and would later undergo cancer therapy.

Multiple accounts from across the snooker circuit speak of the man's extraordinary commitment to honor obligations to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while enduring treatment.

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

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

"It's awful," Kristina says. "No parent should experience any mum and dad to suffer such a loss."

An Enduring Legacy: Giving Back

Hunter's true legacy 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 no-cost coaching 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 provide a positive outlet," one coach said.

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

"It would have thrilled him what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a senior official in the sport stated.

Never Forgotten: Two Decades On

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

"I can access it and I can watch Paul at any moment," Kristina says. "It's marvellous!"

"We like to reminisce about Paul," she concludes. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be recalled."

Although he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have eventually won snooker's ultimate trophy is a part of the sport's history.

The Masters, the competition with which he is most associated, commences later this month. The winner will lift the trophy named in his honor.

But for all his successes, 20 years after his death it is Paul Hunter's character, as much his dazzling snooker ability, that will ensure he is never forgotten.