'He brought laughter': Remembering the sport's departed star 20 years on.

All the young snooker player always wished to do was play snooker.

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

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

But notwithstanding the passing of a phenomenal skill that rose above the game he loved, his influence and memory on the sport and those who were close to him persist as strong as ever.

'He just loved it': The Formative Years

"We could not have predicted in a lifetime Paul would become a career sportsman," Kristina Hunter recalls.

"But he just loved it."

Alan Hunter remembers how his son "cared little for anything else" except for snooker as a young boy.

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

After successfully badgering 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 leap from table top snooker with remarkable ease.

His natural ability would be developed by the former world title holder Joe Johnson, from neighbouring Bradford, at a now defunct club in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Rapid Rise: The Path to Glory

With his parents' pleas to do his homework increasingly falling on deaf ears as the game dominated, his parents took the "risk" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully focus on building a career in the game.

It was a resounding success. Within a short period, their adolescent had won his initial major win, the late-nineties Welsh championship.

Considered one of snooker's most difficult competitions to win because of the presence of elite players only, Hunter triumphed 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 left him.

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

"If you met him you'd like him," Kristina adds. "He brought joy. He'd make you feel at ease."

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

With his natural likability, boyish good looks and honest interview style, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's poster boy for the new millennium.

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

Courage in Crisis: His Final Years

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

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

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter kept playing through the illness and received a standing ovation at The famous Sheffield venue when he competed in the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in autumn 2006, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its cherished personalities.

"It is tragic," Kristina says. "I wouldn't wish any mum and dad to go through that pain."

A Foundation for the Future: Inspiring Youth

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 scheme was so successful that, according to reports, anti-social behavior in some areas plummeted.

"The goal was for a program to help provide a positive outlet," one official said.

The Foundation helped establish the basis for a significant coaching programme, which has provided 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 senior official in the sport stated.

Always Remembered: 20 Years Later

Archive videos of their son's matches via the internet help his parents stay "in touch with his memory".

"I can bring it up and I can watch Paul at any moment," 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 mentioned at all."

Although he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's greatest prize is a part of the sport's legend.

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

But for all his accomplishments, two decades after his death it is Paul Hunter's spirit, as much his dazzling snooker ability, that will ensure he is always remembered.