'Paul was fun': Remembering the sport's lost great a score of years on.

All the Leeds-born talent truly desired to do was practice the game.

A love for the game, sparked at the tender age of three with the help of a miniature snooker set on his family's living room table in the city of Leeds, would result in a pro playing days that saw him win half a dozen major wins in six years.

This year marks 20 years since the popular Hunter passed away from cancer, mere days prior to his birthday marking 28 years.

But in spite of the loss of a phenomenal skill that rose above the sport he adored, his enduring mark on snooker and those who knew him endure as strong as ever.

'The game was his life': The Formative Years

"It was impossible to foresee in a lifetime our son would become a professional snooker player," Kristina Hunter states.

"However he just loved it."

His dad recalls how his son "cared little for anything else" besides snooker as a young boy.

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

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

His mercurial talent would be developed by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now defunct club in the Leeds district of Yeadon.

Quick Success: From Teenager to Champion

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 age of 14 to fully concentrate on building a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within half a decade, their still-teenage son had won his initial major win, the late-nineties Welsh championship.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the presence of only the top competitors, Hunter was victorious three times, in the early 2000s.

'A Cheeky Charm': His Enduring Personality

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

"He had a great temperament did Paul," Alan says. "He was liked by everybody."

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

Hunter's partner Lindsey, with whom he had a daughter, describes him as an "amazing, young cheeky beautiful soul" who was "funny, kind" and "never the first to depart from the party".

With his easy charm, youthful appearance and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his immense skill, Hunter quickly became snooker's poster boy for the modern era.

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

Facing Adversity: A Fight Against Cancer

In 2005, a year that should have been the zenith of his talent, Hunter was diagnosed with cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple anecdotes from across the professional tour attest to the man's extraordinary commitment to keep promises to charity matches, tournaments, and media duties, all while enduring treatment.

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter kept playing through the illness and received a tumultuous reception at The Crucible Theatre when he played at the World Championships that year.

When he passed away in October 2006, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its most popular brothers.

"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "No parent should experience any mum and dad to suffer such a loss."

A Foundation for the Future: Inspiring Youth

Hunter's true contribution would be felt not in royal circles but in snooker halls and clubs across the UK.

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

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

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

The Foundation helped lay the groundwork for a significant coaching programme, which has provided 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 leading figure in the sport stated.

Never Forgotten: Two Decades On

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

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

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she adds. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be mentioned at all."

While he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have gone on to lift 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 memorial cup.

But for all his accomplishments, 20 years after his death it is Paul Hunter's personality, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is never forgotten.