'He brought laughter': Reflecting on snooker's taken talent 20 years on.

Everything the young snooker player truly desired to do was compete on the baize.

A love for the game, developed at the very young age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his parents' coffee table in his Leeds home, would culminate in a life on the tour that saw him secure six major trophies in six years.

The present year marks a score of years since the adored Hunter passed away from cancer, mere days prior to his 28th birthday.

But in spite of the tragic departure of a generational talent that rose above the sport he adored, his legacy and impact on the game and those who knew him remain as powerful today.

'The game was his life': The Formative Years

"It was impossible to foresee in a lifetime our son would become a professional snooker player," his mother recalls.

"Yet he just loved it."

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

"His dedication was constant," he notes. "He would play every night after school."

After persistently asking his dad to take him to a community venue to play on full-size 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 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now closed venue in the Leeds district of Yeadon.

Quick Success: The Path to Glory

With his mother and father's requests to do his homework regularly going unheeded as practice took priority, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully focus on building a career in the game.

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

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

'Paul was fun': The Man Behind the Cue

But for all his triumphs in the sport, away from the game Hunter's down-to-earth charisma never left him.

"He was incredibly composed did Paul," Alan says. "He got on with everybody."

"If you met him you'd like him," Kristina adds. "Paul was fun. He'd make you relaxed."

Hunter's partner Lindsey, with whom he had a child, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "humorous, caring" and "never the first to depart from the party".

With his effortless appeal, boyish good looks and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's poster boy for the new 21st Century.

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

Courage in Crisis: His Final Years

In the mid-2000s, a year that should have marked the peak of his powers, Hunter was found to have cancer and would later undergo aggressive treatment.

Multiple anecdotes from across the snooker circuit speak of the man's extraordinary willingness to keep promises to charity matches, tournaments, and media duties, all while going through treatment.

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter played on 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 succumbed in October 2006, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its cherished personalities.

"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "No parent should experience any mum and dad to go through that pain."

A Foundation for the Future: Giving Back

Hunter's true contribution would be felt not in palaces and castles but in local sports centers across the UK.

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

The initiative was so successful that, according to reports, anti-social behavior in some areas plummeted.

"The aim remained for a scheme to help provide a positive outlet," one coach said.

The Foundation helped establish the basis for a significant coaching programme, which has provided playing opportunities to children all over the world.

"He would have embraced what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a senior official in the sport stated.

Never Forgotten: A Lasting Presence

Archive videos of their son's matches via the internet help his parents stay "in touch with his memory".

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

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she concludes. "Initially it was painful, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be spoken of."

Even though 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 history.

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

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