'He was a joy': Reflecting on the game's lost great a score of years on.

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

A competitive passion, caught at the age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his home's central table in Leeds, would result in a professional career that saw him win half a dozen major wins in a six-year span.

Now marks 20 years since the adored Hunter died from cancer, mere days prior to his birthday marking 28 years.

But notwithstanding the loss of a generational talent that went beyond the sport he adored, his legacy and impact on the game and those who knew him remain as strong as ever.

'The game was his life': The Formative Years

"We'd never have known in a billion years the boy would become a professional snooker player," his mother says.

"However he just was passionate about it."

Hunter's father recounts how his son "wasn't bothered about anything else" besides snooker as a young boy.

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

After persistently asking his dad to take him to a nearby hall to play on regulation tables at the age of eight, the aspiring talent made the leap from home play with aplomb.

His natural ability would be developed by the snooker legend Joe Johnson, from neighbouring Bradford, at a now closed venue in the area of Yeadon.

Metoric Ascent: The Path to Glory

With his parents' pleas to do his homework often being ignored as training came first, his parents took the "risk" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully focus on forging 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 most difficult competitions to win because of the lineup featuring exclusively the best, Hunter triumphed on three occasions, in the early 2000s.

'A Cheeky Charm': The Man Behind the Cue

But for all his success on the table, away from the game Hunter's approachable nature never deserted him.

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

"If you met him you'd enjoy his company," Kristina adds. "He was enjoyable. He'd make you comfortable."

Hunter's partner Lindsey, with whom he had a daughter, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "humorous, caring" and "typically the final guest at the party".

With his effortless appeal, boyish good looks and candid way with the press, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's leading figure for the new millennium.

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

A Brave Battle: A Fight Against Cancer

In that year, a year that should have been the peak of his powers, Hunter was found to have cancer and would later undergo aggressive treatment.

Multiple anecdotes from across the professional tour attest to the man's extraordinary willingness to fulfill commitments to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while enduring treatment.

Despite harsh reactions, Hunter played on through the illness and received a tumultuous reception at The World Championship arena when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in October 2006, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its best-loved members.

"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 legacy would be felt not in palaces and castles but in community venues across the UK.

The charity in his name, set up before his death, would provide free snooker sessions to children all over the country.

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

"The aim remained for a platform to help get kids off the street," one coach said.

The Foundation helped establish the basis 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

Classic footage 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 wonderful!"

"We are happy to speak about Paul," she concludes. "Initially it was painful, but I'd rather somebody talk than him not be mentioned at all."

Even though he never won the World Championship, the widespread belief 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 synonymous, commences later this month. The winner will lift the trophy named in his honor.

But for all his successes, 20 years after his death it is Paul Hunter's personality, as much his brilliant talent on the table, that will ensure he is never forgotten.