'Paul was fun': Remembering the sport's departed star 20 years on.

Everything Paul Hunter ever wanted to do was play snooker.

A competitive passion, sparked at the very young age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his family's living room table in Leeds, would lead to a professional career that saw him claim half a dozen major wins in a six-year span.

This year marks a score of years since the popular Hunter died from cancer, just days before to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But notwithstanding the loss of a phenomenal skill that rose above the game he loved, his legacy and impact on snooker and those who knew him persist as strong as ever.

'The game was his life': A Childhood Obsession

"We could not have predicted in a million years the boy would become a pro on the circuit," his mother recalls.

"Yet he just adored it."

Hunter's father recalls how his son "showed no interest in anything else" except for snooker as a child.

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

After persistently asking his dad to take him to a local club to play on professional-standard tables at the age of eight, the young Hunter made the leap from table top snooker with aplomb.

His mercurial talent would be nurtured by the former world title holder Joe Johnson, from neighbouring Bradford, at a now closed venue in the Leeds district of Yeadon.

Metoric Ascent: The Path to Glory

With his family's urging to do his homework regularly going unheeded as practice took priority, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully concentrate on carving out a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within five years, their adolescent 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 elite players only, Hunter triumphed a trio of times, in the early 2000s.

'A Gracious Competitor': The Man Behind the Cue

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

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

"Upon meeting him you'd enjoy his company," Kristina states. "He brought joy. He'd make you comfortable."

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

With his natural likability, handsome features and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his immense skill, Hunter quickly became snooker's leading figure for the modern era.

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

A Brave Battle: His Final Years

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 sporting world highlight the man's extraordinary willingness to fulfill commitments to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while enduring treatment.

Despite harsh reactions, Hunter continued to compete through the illness and received a rapturous applause at The famous Sheffield venue when he played at the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in October 2006, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its most popular brothers.

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

A Lasting Impact: 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 foundation he inspired, 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, anti-social behavior in some areas fell sharply.

"The aim remained for a platform to help offer a constructive activity," one organizer said.

The Foundation helped establish the basis for a significant 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 chairman in the sport stated.

Never Forgotten: A Lasting Presence

Classic footage of their son's matches on YouTube help his parents stay "in touch with his memory".

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

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she continues. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody mention him than him not be recalled."

Even though he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's ultimate trophy is etched into the sport's history.

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

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.