'Paul was fun': Remembering the sport's lost great two decades on.

Everything Paul Hunter always wished to do was compete on the baize.

A competitive passion, developed at the tender age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his parents' coffee table in Leeds, would lead to a life on the tour that saw him win half a dozen major wins in half a dozen years.

Now marks two decades since the beloved Hunter died from cancer, just days before to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But notwithstanding the passing of a generational talent that transcended the sport he adored, his influence and memory on snooker and those who knew him endure as powerful today.

'He just loved it': The Formative Years

"We'd never have known in a lifetime the boy would become a career sportsman," Kristina Hunter recalls.

"But he just adored it."

His dad recounts how his son "cared little for anything else" except for snooker as a child.

"He never stopped," he says. "He practiced every night after school."

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a community venue to play on full-size tables at the age of eight, the aspiring talent made the leap from home play with remarkable ease.

His mercurial talent would be developed by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now former establishment in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Metoric Ascent: From Teenager to Champion

With his parents' pleas to do his homework regularly going unheeded as practice took priority, his parents took the "gamble" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully focus on carving out a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within half a decade, their adolescent had won his maior professional trophy, the 1998 Welsh Open.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the involvement of elite players only, Hunter was victorious a trio of times, in the early 2000s.

'A Cheeky Charm': The Man Behind the Cue

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

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

"Upon meeting him you'd take to him," Kristina adds. "He was enjoyable. He'd make you relaxed."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had a child, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "funny, kind" and "typically the final guest at the party".

With his effortless appeal, handsome features and honest interview style, not to mention his immense skill, Hunter quickly became snooker's poster boy for the modern era.

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

Courage in Crisis: His Final Years

In 2005, a year that should have signaled the zenith of his talent, Hunter was found to have cancer and would later undergo cancer therapy.

Multiple stories from across the sporting world highlight the man's extraordinary willingness to honor obligations to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while going through treatment.

Despite gruelling side effects, Hunter continued to compete through the illness and received a rapturous applause at The Crucible Theatre when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he passed away in the mid-2000s, snooker's close-knit fraternity 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: Inspiring Youth

Hunter's true legacy would be felt not in high society but in local sports centers across the UK.

The foundation he inspired, set up before his death, would provide no-cost coaching to young people all over the country.

The initiative was so successful that, according to reports, local youth crime rates in some areas dropped significantly.

"The goal was for a scheme to help provide a positive outlet," one organizer said.

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

"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: A Lasting Presence

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

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

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

While he never won the World Championship, the common opinion that Hunter would have secured snooker's top honor is a part of the sport's legend.

The Masters, the competition with which he is most synonymous, commences 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 character, as much his dazzling snooker ability, that will ensure he is never forgotten.