'Paul was fun': Reflecting on the sport's lost great 20 years on.

Everything the Leeds-born talent always wished to do was play snooker.

A competitive passion, developed at the very young age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his home's central table in his Leeds home, would result in a professional career that saw him claim six major trophies in six years.

This year marks a score of years since the popular Hunter succumbed to cancer, mere days prior to his birthday marking 28 years.

But despite the loss of a generational talent that rose above the sport he adored, his influence and memory on snooker and those who followed his career persist as strong as ever.

'The game was his life': The Formative Years

"It was impossible to foresee in a billion years Paul would become a pro on the circuit," Kristina Hunter says.

"However he just loved it."

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

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

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a nearby hall to play on regulation tables at the age of eight, the young Hunter made the jump from miniature games with great skill.

His natural ability would be developed by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from the adjacent city, at a now former establishment in the Leeds district of Yeadon.

Quick Success: The Path to Glory

With his mother and father's requests to do his homework often being ignored as training came first, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the age of 14 to fully concentrate on forging a career in the game.

It paid off in spades. Within a short period, their adolescent had won his maior professional trophy, the late-nineties Welsh championship.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the lineup featuring elite players only, Hunter won on three occasions, in consecutive years.

'Paul was fun': His Enduring Personality

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

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

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

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 effortless appeal, handsome features and honest interview style, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the modern era.

No wonder then, that he was dubbed 'The Snooker World's Beckham'.

Courage in Crisis: A Fight Against Cancer

In the mid-2000s, a year that should have been the zenith of his talent, Hunter was told he had cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple stories from across the snooker circuit attest to the man's extraordinary willingness to keep promises to public appearances and promotional work, all while enduring treatment.

Despite gruelling side effects, Hunter played on through the illness and received a rapturous applause at The World Championship arena when he played at the World Championships that year.

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

"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "It is a terrible thing for any mum and dad to lose a child."

A Foundation for the Future: Giving Back

Hunter's true contribution would be felt not in royal circles but in snooker halls and clubs across the UK.

The charity in his name, set up before his death, would provide accessible training to young people all over the country.

The scheme was so successful that, according to reports, issues with young people in some areas fell sharply.

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

The Foundation helped pave the way for a major coaching programme, which has extended 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.

Forever in Memory: Two Decades On

Archive videos of their son's matches via the internet help his parents stay "close to him".

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

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she adds. "Initially it was painful, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be recalled."

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

The Masters, the competition with which he is most associated, begins later this month. The winner will lift the memorial cup.

But for all his achievements, a generation after his death it is Paul Hunter's personality, as much his dazzling snooker ability, that will ensure he is never forgotten.