'He was a joy': Reflecting on the sport's lost great two decades on.

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

A love for the game, developed at the very young age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his parents' coffee table in Leeds, would result in a life on the tour that saw him secure six major trophies in six years.

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

But in spite of the tragic departure of a once-in-a-generation player that transcended the sport he adored, his legacy and impact on the game and those who were close to him remain as strong as ever.

'The game was his life': A Childhood Obsession

"It was impossible to foresee in a lifetime our son would become a professional snooker player," Kristina Hunter states.

"Yet he just adored it."

Alan Hunter remembers how his son "cared little for anything else" other than snooker as a youth.

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

After repeatedly pleading with his dad to take him to a nearby hall to play on full-size tables at the age of eight, the aspiring talent made the transition 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 Leeds district 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 "risk" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully concentrate on carving out a career in the game.

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

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the involvement of only the top competitors, Hunter triumphed on three occasions, in the early 2000s.

'A Cheeky Charm': A Legacy of Character

But for all his achievements in competition, away from the game Hunter's approachable nature never deserted him.

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

"When encountering him you'd take to him," Kristina adds. "He brought joy. He'd make you relaxed."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had a child, describes him as an "amazing, young cheeky beautiful soul" who was "humorous, caring" and "never the first to depart from the party".

With his effortless appeal, handsome features and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the modern era.

No wonder then, that he was dubbed 'The Beckham of the Baize'.

A Brave Battle: His Final Years

In that year, a year that should have been the height of his career, Hunter was diagnosed with cancer and would later undergo aggressive treatment.

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

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter continued to compete 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 October 2006, 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 go through that pain."

An Enduring Legacy: Giving Back

Hunter's true impact would be felt not in palaces and castles 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, local youth crime rates in some areas dropped significantly.

"The goal was for a program to help offer a constructive activity," one organizer said.

The Foundation helped pave the way for a major coaching programme, which has extended playing opportunities to children all over the world.

"Paul would have loved what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a chairman 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 watch it and I can watch Paul at any moment," Kristina says. "It's wonderful!"

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

Although he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's ultimate trophy is ingrained in the sport's folklore.

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

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