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

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

A competitive passion, developed at the age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his parents' coffee table in his Leeds home, would culminate in a professional career that saw him win six significant titles in half a dozen years.

Now marks a score of years since the beloved Hunter passed away from cancer, just days before to his 28th birthday.

But despite the passing of a generational talent that transcended the pastime he cherished, his legacy and impact on snooker and those who followed his career remain as vibrant now.

'He just loved it': A Childhood Obsession

"We'd never have known in a billion years our son would become a career sportsman," his mother recalls.

"Yet he just was passionate about it."

Alan Hunter recounts how his son "wasn't bothered about anything else" other than snooker as a youth.

"He never stopped," he adds. "He would play every night after school."

After repeatedly pleading with his dad to take him to a local club to play on regulation tables at the age of eight, the budding player made the leap from home play with great skill.

His natural ability would be developed by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from neighbouring Bradford, at a now defunct club 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 practice took priority, his parents took the "gamble" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully concentrate on building a career in the game.

It was a resounding success. Within a short period, their still-teenage son had won his first ranking title, the late-nineties Welsh championship.

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

'A Cheeky Charm': A Legacy of Character

But for all his triumphs in the sport, away from the game Hunter's down-to-earth charisma never left him.

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

"If you met him you'd like him," Kristina states. "Paul was fun. He'd make you feel at ease."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had a child, describes him as an "amazing, young cheeky beautiful soul" who was "humorous, caring" and "typically the final guest at the party".

With his easy charm, youthful appearance and candid way with the press, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's poster boy for the modern era.

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

A Brave Battle: His Final Years

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

Multiple accounts from across the snooker circuit attest to the man's extraordinary commitment to honor obligations to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while enduring treatment.

Despite gruelling side effects, Hunter continued to compete through the illness and received a tumultuous reception at The famous Sheffield venue when he played at the World Championships that year.

When he died in October 2006, snooker's tight community lost one of its cherished personalities.

"It's awful," Kristina says. "It is a terrible thing for any mum and dad to go through that pain."

A Lasting Impact: Giving Back

Hunter's true impact would be felt not in high society but in community venues 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, issues with young people in some areas dropped significantly.

"The goal was for a scheme to help get kids off the street," one organizer said.

The Foundation helped establish the basis for a huge coaching programme, which has extended playing opportunities to children all over the world.

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

Always Remembered: 20 Years Later

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

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

"We like to reminisce about Paul," she concludes. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody mention him than him not be recalled."

While he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have secured snooker's top honor is etched into the sport's history.

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

But for all his successes, a generation after his death it is Paul Hunter's personality, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is never forgotten.