'He was a joy': Remembering the game's lost great two decades on.

Everything Paul Hunter ever wanted to do was play snooker.

A competitive passion, sparked at the tender age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his home's central table in Leeds, would lead to a professional career that saw him secure six significant titles in half a dozen years.

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

But despite the loss of a phenomenal skill that rose above the sport he adored, his influence and memory on the sport and those who were close to him endure as vibrant now.

'The game was his life': The Formative Years

"We could not have predicted in a million years Paul would become a career sportsman," Kristina Hunter recalls.

"Yet he just adored it."

Alan Hunter recounts how his son "wasn't bothered about anything else" other than snooker as a young boy.

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

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a community venue to play on full-size tables at the age of eight, the budding player made the jump from home play with aplomb.

His natural ability would be nurtured by the former world title holder Joe Johnson, from neighbouring Bradford, at a now former establishment in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Metoric Ascent: The Path to Glory

With his mother and father's requests to do his homework often being ignored as the game dominated, his parents took the "risk" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully focus on forging a career in the game.

It paid off in spades. Within a short period, their still-teenage son had won his initial major win, the 1998 Welsh Open.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the lineup featuring only the top competitors, Hunter triumphed three times, in consecutive years.

'A Gracious Competitor': The Man Behind the Cue

But for all his achievements in competition, away from the game Hunter's down-to-earth charisma never deserted him.

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

"Upon meeting him you'd like him," Kristina states. "He brought joy. He'd make you comfortable."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, 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, boyish good looks and honest interview style, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's leading figure for the modern era.

No wonder then, that he was nicknamed 'A Sporting Icon'.

Courage in Crisis: His Final Years

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

Multiple accounts from across the sporting world attest to the man's extraordinary dedication to keep promises to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while going through treatment.

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter continued to compete through the illness and received a tumultuous reception at The Crucible Theatre when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in October 2006, snooker's tight community lost one of its cherished personalities.

"It's awful," Kristina says. "I wouldn't wish any mum and dad to suffer such a loss."

A Lasting Impact: Giving Back

Hunter's true impact would be felt not in high society but in snooker halls and clubs across the UK.

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

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

"The goal was for a program to help provide a positive outlet," one organizer said.

The Foundation helped pave the way for a huge coaching programme, which has opened up playing opportunities to children globally.

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

Never Forgotten: Two Decades On

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

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

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

While he never won the World Championship, the common opinion that Hunter would have secured snooker's greatest prize is ingrained in the sport's folklore.

The Masters, the competition with which he is forever linked, starts later this month. The winner will lift the trophy named in his honor.

But for all his successes, two decades after his death it is Paul Hunter's spirit, as much his dazzling snooker ability, that will ensure he is always remembered.