'Paul was fun': Remembering snooker's departed star two decades on.

All the young snooker player ever wanted to do was play snooker.

A sporting bug, caught at the tender age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his home's central table in the city of Leeds, would culminate in a pro playing days that saw him win half a dozen major wins in half a dozen years.

Now marks two decades since the adored Hunter died from cancer, days short to his 28th birthday.

But in spite of the tragic departure of a once-in-a-generation player that went beyond the sport he adored, his influence and memory on the game and those who followed his career persist as powerful today.

'His passion was clear': Early Beginnings

"It was impossible to foresee in a lifetime the boy would become a professional snooker player," Hunter's mum recalls.

"Yet he just was passionate about it."

Alan Hunter recalls how his son "cared little for anything else" other than snooker as a young boy.

"He was relentless," he adds. "He would play every night after school."

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a nearby hall to play on professional-standard tables at the age of eight, the budding player made the leap from miniature games with remarkable ease.

His natural ability would be coached by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now defunct club in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Quick Success: The Path to Glory

With his parents' pleas to do his homework often being ignored as practice took priority, his parents took the "gamble" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully concentrate on building a career in the game.

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

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

'A Cheeky Charm': His Enduring Personality

But for all his triumphs in the sport, away from the game Hunter's approachable nature never left him.

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

"When encountering him you'd like him," Kristina adds. "He was enjoyable. He'd make you relaxed."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "humorous, caring" and "never the first to depart from the party".

With his effortless appeal, youthful appearance and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new millennium.

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

Courage in Crisis: A Fight Against Cancer

In 2005, a year that should have marked the peak of his powers, Hunter was found to have cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple stories from across the sporting world attest to the man's extraordinary dedication to fulfill commitments to charity matches, tournaments, and media duties, all while undergoing treatment.

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

When he succumbed in the mid-2000s, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its best-loved members.

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

A Lasting Impact: The Paul Hunter Foundation

Hunter's true legacy 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 young people all over the country.

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

"The aim remained for a program to help offer a constructive activity," one organizer said.

The Foundation helped pave the way for a significant coaching programme, which has provided playing opportunities to children globally.

"Paul would have loved what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a senior official in the sport stated.

Forever in Memory: 20 Years Later

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

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

"We like to reminisce about Paul," she adds. "At first it was sad, but I'd rather somebody talk than him not be spoken of."

Although 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 legend.

The Masters, the competition with which he is forever linked, begins later this month. The winner will lift the trophy named in his honor.

But for all his accomplishments, a generation after his death it is Paul Hunter's spirit, as much his brilliant talent on the table, that will ensure he is never forgotten.