'He brought laughter': Reflecting on snooker's departed star two decades on.

All the Leeds-born talent truly desired to do was play snooker.

A love for the game, caught at the very young age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his parents' coffee table in the city of Leeds, would result in a pro playing days that saw him claim six major trophies in half a dozen years.

This year marks a score of years since the beloved Hunter succumbed to cancer, days short to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But in spite of the tragic departure of a phenomenal skill that transcended the game he loved, his influence and memory on the sport and those who followed his career persist as powerful today.

'He just loved it': Early Beginnings

"It was impossible to foresee in a billion years Paul would become a career sportsman," Kristina Hunter recalls.

"But he just was passionate about it."

His dad remembers how his son "showed no interest in anything else" besides snooker as a child.

"He never stopped," he notes. "He competed 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 young Hunter made the jump from table top snooker with aplomb.

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.

Metoric Ascent: A Star is Born

With his family's urging to do his homework regularly going unheeded as training came first, his parents took the "gamble" of taking Hunter out of school at the age of 14 to fully focus on carving out a career in the game.

It was a resounding success. Within five years, 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 involvement of elite players only, Hunter triumphed on three occasions, in the early 2000s.

'A Cheeky Charm': His Enduring Personality

But for all his success on the table, away from the game Hunter's down-to-earth charisma never faded.

"His demeanor was excellent did Paul," Alan says. "He was liked by everybody."

"When encountering him you'd like him," Kristina states. "He was enjoyable. He'd make you feel at ease."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "incredible, lively, and kind spirit" who was "funny, kind" and "never the first to depart from the party".

With his easy charm, handsome features and candid way with the press, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new millennium.

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

Facing Adversity: A Fight Against Cancer

In the mid-2000s, a year that should have marked the height of his career, Hunter was diagnosed with cancer and would later undergo cancer therapy.

Multiple anecdotes from across the snooker circuit speak of the man's extraordinary willingness to honor obligations to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while going through treatment.

Despite gruelling side effects, Hunter kept playing through the illness and received a rapturous applause at The famous Sheffield venue when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he died in autumn 2006, 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 lose a child."

An Enduring Legacy: Giving Back

Hunter's true legacy would be felt not in high society but in community venues across the UK.

The charity in his name, set up before his death, would provide no-cost coaching to youths all over the country.

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

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

The Foundation helped lay the groundwork for a huge coaching programme, which has opened up playing opportunities to children internationally.

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

Never Forgotten: A Lasting Presence

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

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

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she continues. "At first it was sad, but I'd rather somebody mention him than him not be recalled."

Although he never won the World Championship, the common opinion that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's greatest prize is ingrained in the sport's legend.

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

But for all his successes, a generation after his death it is Paul Hunter's personality, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is never forgotten.