'Paul was fun': Honoring the sport's departed star 20 years on.

All Paul Hunter ever wanted to do was compete on the baize.

A sporting bug, sparked at the age of three with the help of a miniature snooker set on his home's central table in his Leeds home, would result in a life on the tour that saw him claim six major trophies in half a dozen years.

The present year marks a score of years since the popular Hunter died from cancer, days short to his 28th birthday.

But in spite of the loss of a once-in-a-generation player that rose above the sport he adored, his influence and memory on the sport and those who followed his career persist as powerful today.

'He just loved it': The Formative Years

"We'd never have known in a lifetime our son would become a career sportsman," Kristina Hunter recalls.

"However he just was passionate about it."

His dad recalls how his son "showed no interest in anything else" besides snooker as a child.

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

After persistently asking his dad to take him to a local club to play on regulation tables at the age of eight, the aspiring talent made the transition from home play with aplomb.

His mercurial talent would be coached by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now defunct club 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 the game dominated, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully dedicate himself to building a career in the game.

It was a resounding success. Within half a decade, their young son had won his first ranking title, the 1998 Welsh Open.

Considered one of snooker's most difficult competitions to win because of the lineup featuring elite players only, Hunter triumphed on three occasions, in 2001, 2002 and 2004.

'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 got on with everybody."

"Upon meeting him you'd like him," Kristina states. "He was enjoyable. He'd make you comfortable."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had a daughter, describes him as an "incredible, lively, and kind spirit" who was "funny, kind" and "always the last to leave the party".

With his effortless appeal, boyish good looks and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's leading figure for the modern era.

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

Courage in Crisis: His Final Years

In that year, a year that should have been the peak of his powers, Hunter was diagnosed with cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple accounts from across the sporting world highlight the man's extraordinary commitment to fulfill commitments to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while undergoing treatment.

Despite harsh reactions, Hunter played on through the illness and received a tumultuous reception at The World Championship arena when he played at the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in the mid-2000s, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its best-loved members.

"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "I wouldn't wish any mum and dad to suffer such a loss."

A Lasting Impact: The Paul Hunter Foundation

Hunter's true impact would be felt not in high society but in local sports centers across the UK.

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

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

"The goal was for a scheme to help offer a constructive activity," one official said.

The Foundation helped lay the groundwork for a huge 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.

Forever in Memory: A Lasting Presence

Archive videos of their son's matches online help his parents stay "connected to him".

"I can watch it and I can watch Paul at any moment," Kristina says. "It's marvellous!"

"We like to reminisce about Paul," she adds. "At first it was sad, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be spoken of."

While he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have secured snooker's greatest prize is etched into the sport's folklore.

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

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