'Paul was fun': Honoring the sport's departed star a score of years on.

Everything the Leeds-born talent always wished to do was play snooker.

A competitive passion, caught at the tender age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his family's living room table in Leeds, would lead to a professional career that saw him secure six significant titles in six years.

The present year marks a score of years since the adored Hunter succumbed to cancer, just days before to his 28th birthday.

But in spite of the loss of a phenomenal skill that rose above the game he loved, his enduring mark on snooker and those who were close to him remain as strong as ever.

'He just loved it': The Formative Years

"We'd never have known in a lifetime our son would become a professional snooker player," Kristina Hunter recalls.

"But he just adored it."

Hunter's father remembers how his son "cared little for anything else" other than snooker as a child.

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

After successfully badgering 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 jump from miniature games with great skill.

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

Quick Success: The Path to Glory

With his parents' pleas to do his homework increasingly falling on deaf ears as training came first, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully focus on building a career in the game.

It paid off in spades. Within half a decade, their adolescent had won his initial major win, the late-nineties Welsh championship.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the involvement of only the top competitors, Hunter won on three occasions, in consecutive years.

'A Gracious Competitor': A Legacy of Character

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

"He had a great temperament did Paul," Alan says. "He was liked by everybody."

"When encountering him you'd take to him," Kristina adds. "He was enjoyable. He'd make you comfortable."

Hunter's widow Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "amazing, young cheeky beautiful soul" who was "humorous, caring" and "always the last to leave the party".

With his natural likability, handsome features and candid way with the press, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's poster boy for the modern era.

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

Courage in Crisis: Illness and Resilience

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

Multiple accounts from across the sporting world speak of the man's extraordinary commitment to fulfill commitments to charity matches, tournaments, and media duties, all while undergoing treatment.

Despite harsh reactions, Hunter kept playing through the illness and received a standing ovation at The Crucible Theatre when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he died in the mid-2000s, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its cherished personalities.

"It's awful," Kristina says. "I wouldn't wish any mum and dad to go through that pain."

A Lasting Impact: Inspiring Youth

Hunter's true contribution 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 free snooker sessions to youths all over the country.

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

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

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

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

Always Remembered: 20 Years Later

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 at any moment," Kristina says. "It's wonderful!"

"We are happy to speak about Paul," she concludes. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody mention him than him not be mentioned at all."

While he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have secured snooker's top honor is ingrained in the sport's history.

The Masters, the competition with which he is most synonymous, commences later this month. The winner will lift the Paul Hunter Trophy.

But for all his accomplishments, two decades after his death it is Paul Hunter's spirit, as much his dazzling snooker ability, that will ensure he is forever celebrated.