'Paul was fun': Remembering the game's departed star 20 years on.

All the Leeds-born talent always wished to do was practice the game.

A love for the game, sparked at the age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his home's central table in his Leeds home, would lead to a professional career that saw him claim six major trophies in a six-year span.

The present year marks 20 years since the adored Hunter succumbed to cancer, just days before to his 28th birthday.

But in spite of the passing of a phenomenal skill that went beyond the pastime he cherished, his influence and memory on the game and those who knew him endure as powerful today.

'He just loved it': Early Beginnings

"We'd never have known in a billion years the boy would become a professional snooker player," Hunter's mum recalls.

"But he just was passionate about it."

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

"He was relentless," he says. "He would play 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 leap from table top snooker with remarkable ease.

His natural ability would be developed by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now former establishment in the area of Yeadon.

Quick Success: The Path to Glory

With his mother and father's requests to do his homework often being ignored as training came first, 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 was a resounding success. Within five years, their still-teenage son had won his maior professional trophy, the late-nineties Welsh championship.

Considered one of snooker's toughest events to win because of the involvement of only the top competitors, Hunter won on three occasions, in consecutive years.

'Paul was fun': A Legacy of Character

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

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

"When encountering him you'd take to him," Kristina continues. "He brought joy. He'd make you feel at ease."

Hunter's widow Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "incredible, lively, and kind spirit" who was "funny, kind" and "always the last to leave the party".

With his easy charm, handsome features and honest interview style, not to mention his immense skill, Hunter quickly became snooker's leading figure for the new millennium.

No wonder then, that he was dubbed 'The Beckham of the Baize'.

A Brave Battle: Illness and Resilience

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

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

Despite gruelling side effects, Hunter kept playing 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 died in autumn 2006, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its most popular brothers.

"It's awful," Kristina says. "I wouldn't wish any mum and dad to go through that pain."

A Lasting Impact: The Paul Hunter Foundation

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

The charity in his name, set up before his death, would provide accessible training to youths all over the country.

The scheme was so successful that, according to reports, local youth crime rates in some areas fell sharply.

"The idea was for a program to help provide a positive outlet," one coach said.

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

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

Forever in Memory: 20 Years Later

Historic matches of their son's matches online help his parents stay "close to him".

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

"We are happy to speak about Paul," she continues. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be spoken of."

Although he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's top honor is ingrained in the sport's folklore.

The Masters, the competition with which he is most associated, starts later this month. The winner will lift the Paul Hunter Trophy.

But for all his achievements, 20 years after his death it is Paul Hunter's spirit, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is forever celebrated.