'He brought laughter': Remembering snooker's taken talent two decades on.

All the young snooker player ever wanted to do was play snooker.

A love for the game, caught at the tender age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his home's central table in the city of Leeds, would culminate in a pro playing days that saw him claim six major trophies in half a dozen years.

The present year marks 20 years since the adored Hunter succumbed to cancer, just days before to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But notwithstanding the loss of a generational talent that went beyond the sport he adored, his influence and memory on snooker and those who were close to him persist as powerful today.

'The game was his life': The Formative Years

"We could not have predicted in a million years the boy would become a pro on the circuit," Hunter's mum recalls.

"Yet he just adored it."

His dad recounts how his son "wasn't bothered about anything else" other than snooker as a child.

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

After repeatedly pleading with 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 leap from home play with great skill.

His natural ability would be developed by the snooker legend Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now defunct club in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Quick Success: From Teenager to Champion

With his mother and father's requests to do his homework regularly going unheeded as training came first, his parents took the "gamble" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully concentrate on forging a career in the game.

It paid off in spades. Within half a decade, their still-teenage son had won his first ranking title, the 1998 Welsh Open.

Considered one of snooker's toughest events to win because of the lineup featuring only the top competitors, Hunter triumphed a trio of times, in the early 2000s.

'A Gracious Competitor': His Enduring Personality

But for all his success on the table, away from the game Hunter's down-to-earth charisma never deserted him.

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

"When encountering him you'd like him," Kristina states. "He brought joy. He'd make you feel at ease."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had a daughter, describes him as an "incredible, lively, and kind spirit" who was "humorous, caring" and "typically the final guest at the party".

With his easy charm, boyish good looks and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new millennium.

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

Facing Adversity: His Final Years

In that year, a year that should have marked the peak of his powers, Hunter was found to have cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple stories from across the snooker circuit speak of the man's extraordinary dedication to honor obligations to charity matches, tournaments, and media duties, 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 played at the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in October 2006, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its cherished personalities.

"It's awful," Kristina says. "No parent should experience any mum and dad to lose a child."

An Enduring Legacy: Giving Back

Hunter's true contribution would be felt not in royal circles 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 young people all over the country.

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

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

The Foundation helped lay the groundwork for a major coaching programme, which has opened up playing opportunities to children internationally.

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

Always Remembered: A Lasting Presence

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

"I can access it and I can watch Paul whenever I wish," Kristina says. "It's marvellous!"

"We are happy to speak about Paul," she continues. "Initially it was painful, but I'd rather somebody talk 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 etched into the sport's legend.

The Masters, the competition with which he is forever linked, commences 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.