'He brought laughter': Reflecting on the game's departed star a score of years on.

Everything the Leeds-born talent ever wanted to do was play snooker.

A competitive passion, sparked at the age of three with the help of a miniature snooker set on his parents' coffee table in Leeds, would lead to a life on the tour that saw him secure six significant titles in six years.

This year marks a score of years since the beloved Hunter succumbed to cancer, just days before to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But despite the loss of a generational talent that transcended the sport he adored, his enduring mark on the game and those who followed his career persist as strong as ever.

'His passion was clear': The Formative Years

"It was impossible to foresee in a lifetime our son would become a career sportsman," Kristina Hunter says.

"Yet he just loved it."

Hunter's father remembers how his son "wasn't bothered about anything else" besides snooker as a child.

"He was relentless," he adds. "He would play every night after school."

After repeatedly pleading with his dad to take him to a community venue to play on regulation tables at the age of eight, the budding player made the transition from home play with remarkable ease.

His mercurial talent would be coached by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from the adjacent city, at a now former establishment 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 the game dominated, his parents took the "gamble" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully focus on forging a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within a short period, their young son had won his first ranking title, the Welsh Open of 1998.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the lineup featuring exclusively the best, Hunter won a trio of times, in the early 2000s.

'A Gracious Competitor': His Enduring Personality

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

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

"If you met him you'd like him," Kristina continues. "He brought joy. He'd make you feel at ease."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had a child, describes him as an "incredible, lively, and kind spirit" who was "witty, generous" and "never the first to depart from the party".

With his easy charm, handsome features and honest interview style, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's leading figure for the modern era.

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

A Brave Battle: A Fight Against Cancer

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

Multiple anecdotes from across the professional tour highlight the man's extraordinary dedication to fulfill commitments to public appearances and promotional work, all while undergoing treatment.

Despite gruelling side effects, Hunter played on through the illness and received a rapturous applause at The World Championship arena when he competed in the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in October 2006, snooker's tight community lost one of its most popular brothers.

"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "No parent should experience any mum and dad to lose a child."

A Lasting Impact: Giving Back

Hunter's true legacy would be felt not in high society but in community venues across the UK.

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

The program was so successful that, according to reports, anti-social behavior in some areas fell sharply.

"The aim remained for a scheme to help get kids off the street," one organizer said.

The Foundation helped pave the way 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 chairman in the sport stated.

Forever in Memory: 20 Years Later

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 whenever I wish," Kristina says. "It's a comfort!"

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she adds. "At first it was sad, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be recalled."

Even though he never won the World Championship, the common opinion that Hunter would have secured snooker's ultimate trophy is a part of 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 accomplishments, a generation after his death it is Paul Hunter's character, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is forever celebrated.