'Paul was fun': Remembering snooker's lost great two decades on.

All the Leeds-born talent always wished to do was practice the game.

A love for the game, sparked at the age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his home's central table in the city of Leeds, would result in a pro playing days that saw him secure six major trophies in half a dozen years.

This year marks a score of years since the adored Hunter passed away from cancer, days short to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But despite the passing of a once-in-a-generation player that rose above the sport he adored, his influence and memory on the game and those who followed his career persist as powerful today.

'He just loved it': A Childhood Obsession

"We'd never have known in a million years Paul would become a career sportsman," Hunter's mum states.

"But he just adored it."

Alan Hunter remembers how his son "showed no interest in anything else" except for snooker as a child.

"His dedication was constant," he says. "He would play 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 leap from home play with aplomb.

His mercurial talent would be coached by the former world title holder Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now defunct club in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Quick Success: From Teenager to Champion

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

It proved a masterstroke. Within five years, their still-teenage son had won his first ranking title, the 1998 Welsh Open.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the involvement of only the top competitors, Hunter won three times, in consecutive years.

'A Gracious Competitor': The Man Behind the Cue

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

"He was incredibly composed did Paul," Alan says. "He connected with everybody."

"When encountering him you'd enjoy his company," Kristina adds. "He brought joy. He'd make you relaxed."

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

With his easy charm, handsome features 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 christened 'A Sporting Icon'.

Courage in Crisis: His Final Years

In that year, a year that should have been the zenith of his talent, Hunter was diagnosed with cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple stories from across the professional tour attest to the man's extraordinary dedication to honor obligations to charity matches, tournaments, and media duties, all while enduring treatment.

Despite gruelling side effects, Hunter kept playing through the illness and received a tumultuous reception at The World Championship arena when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he died in autumn 2006, snooker's tight community lost one of its most popular brothers.

"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "No parent should experience any mum and dad to suffer such a loss."

An Enduring Legacy: Giving Back

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 accessible training to children all over the country.

The initiative was so successful that, according to reports, local youth crime rates in some areas fell sharply.

"The goal was for a platform to help offer a constructive activity," one coach said.

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

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

Never Forgotten: 20 Years Later

Classic footage of their son's matches on YouTube help his parents stay "close to him".

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

"We are happy to speak about Paul," she concludes. "Initially it was painful, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be spoken of."

While he never won the World Championship, the common opinion 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 forever linked, begins later this month. The winner will lift the Paul Hunter Trophy.

But for all his accomplishments, a generation after his death it is Paul Hunter's personality, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is always remembered.