'Paul was fun': Honoring the sport's lost great 20 years on.

All the young snooker player ever wanted to do was practice the game.

A sporting bug, sparked at the age of three with the help of a miniature snooker set on his parents' coffee table in his Leeds home, would lead to a professional career that saw him win six significant titles in a six-year span.

This year marks two decades since the beloved Hunter succumbed to cancer, days short to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But in spite of the loss of a generational talent that went beyond the pastime he cherished, his influence and memory on snooker and those who were close to him persist as strong as ever.

'His passion was clear': The Formative Years

"It was impossible to foresee in a million years our son would become a career sportsman," Kristina Hunter states.

"Yet he just adored it."

His dad recounts how his son "cared little for anything else" other than snooker as a child.

"His dedication was constant," he notes. "He practiced every night after school."

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a local club to play on full-size tables at the age of eight, the aspiring talent made the leap from miniature games with great skill.

His natural ability would be coached by the former world title holder Joe Johnson, from the adjacent city, at a now defunct club in the area of Yeadon.

Rapid Rise: From Teenager to Champion

With his family's urging to do his homework increasingly falling on deaf ears as practice took priority, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully focus on building a career in the game.

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

Considered one of snooker's most difficult competitions to win because of the lineup featuring elite players only, Hunter won on three occasions, in the early 2000s.

'A Cheeky Charm': His Enduring Personality

But for all his success on the table, away from the game Hunter's down-to-earth charisma never left him.

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

"When encountering him you'd like him," Kristina states. "Paul was fun. He'd make you relaxed."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "funny, kind" and "typically the final guest at the party".

With his easy charm, boyish good looks and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's leading figure for the modern era.

No wonder then, that he was christened 'A Sporting Icon'.

Facing Adversity: His Final Years

In 2005, a year that should have signaled the zenith of his talent, Hunter was told he had cancer and would later undergo cancer therapy.

Multiple anecdotes from across the professional tour attest to the man's extraordinary dedication 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 rapturous applause at The Crucible Theatre when he competed in the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in the mid-2000s, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its best-loved members.

"It's awful," Kristina says. "It is a terrible thing for any mum and dad to lose a child."

A Lasting Impact: Giving Back

Hunter's true legacy would be felt not in palaces and castles but in snooker halls and clubs across the UK.

The Paul Hunter Foundation, set up before his death, would provide free snooker sessions to young people all over the country.

The initiative was so successful that, according to reports, anti-social behavior in some areas fell sharply.

"The aim remained for a program to help offer a constructive activity," one coach said.

The Foundation helped pave the way for a significant coaching programme, which has provided playing opportunities to children internationally.

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

Forever in Memory: A Lasting Presence

Historic matches of their son's matches on YouTube 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 don't mind talking about Paul," she concludes. "Initially it was painful, but I'd rather somebody mention him than him not be recalled."

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 history.

The Masters, the competition with which he is forever linked, starts later this month. The winner will lift the Paul Hunter Trophy.

But for all his accomplishments, 20 years after his death it is Paul Hunter's personality, as much his dazzling snooker ability, that will ensure he is always remembered.