'He brought laughter': Remembering snooker's lost great 20 years on.

Everything the young snooker player truly desired to do was play snooker.

A sporting bug, developed at the tender age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his family's living room table in his Leeds home, would culminate in a professional career that saw him win half a dozen major wins in half a dozen years.

Now marks two decades since the popular Hunter succumbed to cancer, just days before to his birthday marking 28 years.

But despite the tragic departure of a once-in-a-generation player that rose above the game he loved, his influence and memory on the sport and those who were close to him persist as powerful today.

'The game was his life': Early Beginnings

"We'd never have known in a million years Paul would become a professional snooker player," his mother states.

"However he just was passionate about it."

Hunter's father recalls how his son "showed no interest in anything else" besides snooker as a child.

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

After persistently asking his dad to take him to a local club to play on full-size tables at the age of eight, the budding player made the jump from miniature games with great skill.

His mercurial talent 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.

Metoric Ascent: The Path to Glory

With his parents' pleas to do his homework increasingly falling on deaf ears as practice took priority, his parents took the "risk" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully focus on building a career in the game.

It paid off in spades. Within half a decade, their young son had won his maior professional trophy, the Welsh Open of 1998.

Considered one of snooker's most difficult competitions to win because of the presence of only the top competitors, Hunter was victorious a trio of times, in consecutive years.

'A Cheeky Charm': A Legacy of Character

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

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

"If you met him you'd take to him," Kristina adds. "He was enjoyable. He'd make you comfortable."

Hunter's partner Lindsey, with whom he had a child, describes him as an "incredible, lively, and kind spirit" who was "witty, generous" and "never the first to depart from the party".

With his easy charm, boyish good looks and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's poster boy for the new millennium.

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

A Brave Battle: Illness and Resilience

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

Multiple anecdotes from across the professional tour speak of the man's extraordinary willingness to honor obligations to public appearances and promotional work, all while undergoing treatment.

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter kept playing through the illness and received a standing ovation at The Crucible Theatre when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he passed away in October 2006, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its cherished personalities.

"It's awful," Kristina says. "It is a terrible thing for 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 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, local youth crime rates in some areas dropped significantly.

"The goal was for a scheme to help get kids off the street," one coach said.

The Foundation helped lay the groundwork for a major 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 chairman in the sport stated.

Forever in Memory: 20 Years Later

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

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

"We like to reminisce about Paul," she concludes. "Initially it was painful, but I'd rather somebody mention him than him not be spoken of."

While he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have secured snooker's greatest prize is ingrained in the sport's history.

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 successes, a generation after his death it is Paul Hunter's personality, as much his brilliant talent on the table, that will ensure he is forever celebrated.