'He was a joy': Honoring the sport's lost great a score of years on.

Everything the young snooker player always wished to do was compete on the baize.

A competitive passion, sparked at the tender age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his family's living room table in Leeds, would lead to a pro playing days that saw him secure half a dozen major wins in half a dozen years.

This year marks 20 years since the beloved Hunter died from cancer, mere days prior to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But notwithstanding the loss of a once-in-a-generation player that went beyond the pastime he cherished, his enduring mark on snooker and those who were close to him remain as vibrant now.

'The game was his life': A Childhood Obsession

"We could not have predicted in a lifetime our son would become a professional snooker player," Hunter's mum states.

"However he just adored it."

Hunter's father recalls how his son "cared little for anything else" other than snooker as a youth.

"He was relentless," he adds. "He practiced every night after school."

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a local club to play on regulation tables at the age of eight, the aspiring talent made the transition from home play with great skill.

His mercurial talent would be coached by the snooker legend Joe Johnson, from the adjacent city, at a now closed venue in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Metoric Ascent: A Star is Born

With his mother and father's requests 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 mid-teens to fully concentrate on carving out a career in the game.

It paid off in spades. Within five years, their young son had won his initial major win, the Welsh Open of 1998.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the lineup featuring exclusively the best, Hunter was victorious three times, in consecutive years.

'A Gracious Competitor': His Enduring Personality

But for all his success on the table, away from the game Hunter's approachable nature never deserted him.

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

"When encountering him you'd take to him," Kristina states. "Paul was fun. He'd make you comfortable."

Hunter's widow Lindsey, with whom he had a child, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "witty, generous" and "always the last to leave the party".

With his natural likability, youthful appearance and candid way with the press, not to mention his immense skill, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new millennium.

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

Courage in Crisis: Illness and Resilience

In that year, a year that should have marked the height of his career, Hunter was told he had cancer and would later undergo aggressive treatment.

Multiple accounts from across the snooker circuit highlight 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 World Championship arena when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he died in autumn 2006, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its best-loved members.

"It's awful," Kristina says. "I wouldn't wish any mum and dad to lose a child."

A Foundation for the Future: The Paul Hunter Foundation

Hunter's true impact would be felt not in high society but in snooker halls and clubs across the UK.

The charity in his name, 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, issues with young people in some areas fell sharply.

"The idea was for a platform to help provide a positive outlet," one coach said.

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

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

Forever in Memory: 20 Years Later

Classic footage of their son's matches online help his parents stay "connected to him".

"I can access it and I can watch Paul anytime," Kristina says. "It's wonderful!"

"We are happy to speak about Paul," she continues. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody talk than him not be recalled."

Although he never won the World Championship, the common opinion that Hunter would have eventually won snooker's greatest prize is a part of the sport's folklore.

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 achievements, two decades after his death it is Paul Hunter's spirit, as much his brilliant talent on the table, that will ensure he is never forgotten.