'Paul was fun': Remembering the sport's lost great 20 years on.

All Paul Hunter ever wanted to do was practice the game.

A competitive passion, developed at the very young age of three with the help of a miniature snooker set on his parents' coffee table in his Leeds home, would result in a pro playing days that saw him secure six significant titles in six years.

Now marks a score of years since the popular Hunter succumbed to cancer, just days before to his birthday marking 28 years.

But in spite of the tragic departure of a phenomenal skill that went beyond the game he loved, his influence and memory on the game and those who knew him endure as strong as ever.

'He just loved it': The Formative Years

"We could not have predicted in a million years our son would become a professional snooker player," his mother recalls.

"But he just was passionate about it."

His dad remembers how his son "cared little for anything else" other than snooker as a young boy.

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

After repeatedly pleading with 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 transition from miniature games with remarkable ease.

His raw skill would be coached by the former world title holder Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now former establishment in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Rapid Rise: From Teenager to Champion

With his mother and father's requests to do his homework increasingly falling on deaf ears as practice took priority, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully concentrate on forging a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within half a decade, their still-teenage son had won his initial major win, the 1998 Welsh Open.

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

'A Cheeky Charm': A Legacy of Character

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

"His demeanor was excellent did Paul," Alan says. "He connected with everybody."

"When encountering him you'd enjoy his company," Kristina states. "Paul was fun. He'd make you relaxed."

Hunter's widow Lindsey, with whom he had a child, describes him as an "amazing, young cheeky beautiful soul" who was "funny, kind" and "always the last to leave the party".

With his natural likability, handsome features and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's leading figure for the new millennium.

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

Facing Adversity: Illness and Resilience

In that year, a year that should have signaled the height of his career, Hunter was found to have cancer and would later undergo cancer therapy.

Multiple anecdotes from across the professional tour speak of the man's extraordinary commitment to keep promises to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while enduring treatment.

Despite gruelling side effects, Hunter played on through the illness and received a tumultuous reception at The Crucible Theatre 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 best-loved members.

"It's awful," Kristina says. "It is a terrible thing for any mum and dad to lose a child."

A Lasting Impact: The Paul Hunter Foundation

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

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

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

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

The Foundation helped lay the groundwork for a major coaching programme, which has provided playing opportunities to children all over the world.

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

Always Remembered: Two Decades On

Classic footage of their son's matches on YouTube 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 like to reminisce about Paul," she adds. "Before it would be tears, 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 gone on to lift snooker's top honor is a part of the sport's history.

The Masters, the competition with which he is forever linked, 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 personality, as much his dazzling snooker ability, that will ensure he is forever celebrated.