'Paul was fun': Remembering snooker's lost great a score of years on.

Everything the Leeds-born talent always wished to do was play snooker.

A competitive passion, caught at the very young age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his parents' coffee table in Leeds, would culminate in a pro playing days that saw him claim six significant titles in six years.

Now marks a score of years since the beloved Hunter succumbed to cancer, mere days prior to his twenty-eighth birthday.

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

'The game was his life': Early Beginnings

"It was impossible to foresee in a million years the boy would become a professional snooker player," Kristina Hunter recalls.

"But he just adored it."

Alan Hunter recounts how his son "showed no interest in anything else" except for snooker as a young boy.

"His dedication was constant," he adds. "He would play every night after school."

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a nearby hall to play on full-size tables at the age of eight, the budding player made the transition from miniature games with remarkable ease.

His raw skill would be nurtured by the former world title holder Joe Johnson, from neighbouring Bradford, at a now defunct club in the Leeds district of Yeadon.

Rapid Rise: From Teenager to Champion

With his parents' pleas to do his homework increasingly falling on deaf ears as the game dominated, his parents took the "gamble" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully dedicate himself to forging a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within five years, their still-teenage son had won his initial major win, the late-nineties Welsh championship.

Considered one of snooker's most difficult competitions to win because of the presence of exclusively the best, Hunter triumphed three times, in consecutive years.

'A Gracious Competitor': A Legacy of Character

But for all his achievements in competition, away from the game Hunter's humble charm never faded.

"His demeanor was excellent did Paul," Alan says. "He got on with everybody."

"When encountering him you'd like him," Kristina continues. "Paul was fun. He'd make you feel at ease."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "humorous, caring" and "never the first to depart from the party".

With his effortless appeal, boyish good looks and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his immense skill, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new 21st Century.

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

Courage in Crisis: His Final Years

In 2005, a year that should have been the height of his career, Hunter was found to have cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple accounts from across the snooker circuit highlight the man's extraordinary commitment to keep promises to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while undergoing treatment.

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter kept playing through the illness and received a standing ovation at The Crucible Theatre when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in the mid-2000s, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its most popular brothers.

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

A Lasting Impact: Inspiring Youth

Hunter's true impact 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 no-cost coaching to children all over the country.

The scheme was so successful that, according to reports, issues with young people in some areas fell sharply.

"The goal was for a scheme to help offer a constructive activity," one official said.

The Foundation helped establish the basis for a huge coaching programme, which has provided playing opportunities to children internationally.

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

Never Forgotten: 20 Years Later

Historic matches of their son's matches on YouTube help his parents stay "connected to him".

"I can bring it up and I can watch Paul whenever I wish," Kristina says. "It's marvellous!"

"We like to reminisce about Paul," she concludes. "Initially it was painful, but I'd rather somebody talk than him not be spoken of."

Even though he never won the World Championship, the widespread belief that Hunter would have eventually won snooker's ultimate trophy is ingrained in the sport's legend.

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

But for all his achievements, 20 years after his death it is Paul Hunter's character, as much his dazzling snooker ability, that will ensure he is forever celebrated.