'He brought laughter': Honoring the game's taken talent two decades on.

All Paul Hunter always wished to do was practice the game.

A sporting bug, sparked at the age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his parents' coffee table in his Leeds home, would lead to a pro playing days that saw him win six significant titles in six years.

The present year marks 20 years since the adored Hunter passed away from cancer, days short to his birthday marking 28 years.

But notwithstanding the tragic departure of a phenomenal skill that transcended the pastime he cherished, his enduring mark on snooker and those who followed his career persist as powerful today.

'He just loved it': The Formative Years

"It was impossible to foresee in a billion years the boy would become a pro on the circuit," his mother states.

"Yet he just adored it."

Alan Hunter recalls how his son "showed no interest in anything else" other than snooker as a child.

"He never stopped," he says. "He competed every night after school."

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a local club to play on professional-standard tables at the age of eight, the young Hunter made the leap from table top snooker with great skill.

His mercurial talent would be nurtured by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now defunct club in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Rapid Rise: A Star is Born

With his parents' pleas to do his homework regularly going unheeded as practice took priority, his parents took the "gamble" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully concentrate on carving out a career in the game.

It was a resounding success. Within a short period, their still-teenage son had won his maior professional trophy, the late-nineties Welsh championship.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the lineup featuring exclusively the best, Hunter was victorious a trio of times, in 2001, 2002 and 2004.

'A Gracious Competitor': His Enduring Personality

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

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

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

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

With his effortless appeal, youthful appearance and honest interview style, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the modern era.

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

Facing Adversity: Illness and Resilience

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

Multiple accounts from across the professional tour attest to the man's extraordinary dedication to honor obligations to public appearances and promotional work, all while undergoing treatment.

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

When he succumbed in October 2006, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its best-loved members.

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

A Lasting Impact: Giving Back

Hunter's true impact would be felt not in palaces and castles but in community venues across the UK.

The foundation he inspired, set up before his death, would provide accessible training to children all over the country.

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

"The goal was for a scheme to help offer a constructive activity," one official 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 senior official in the sport stated.

Forever in Memory: A Lasting Presence

Historic matches of their son's matches on YouTube help his parents stay "in touch with his memory".

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

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she concludes. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be recalled."

Although he never won the World Championship, the widespread belief that Hunter would have secured snooker's ultimate trophy is ingrained in the sport's history.

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 accomplishments, two decades after his death it is Paul Hunter's personality, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is forever celebrated.