'Paul was fun': Honoring the game's taken talent a score of years on.

All Paul Hunter truly desired to do was practice the game.

A love for the game, caught at the age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his parents' coffee table in the city of Leeds, would culminate in a pro playing days that saw him claim six significant titles in half a dozen years.

The present year marks a score of years since the popular Hunter passed away from cancer, mere days prior to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But notwithstanding the passing of a generational talent that rose above the pastime he cherished, his influence and memory on the sport and those who were close to him persist as powerful today.

'He just loved it': The Formative Years

"We'd never have known in a million years Paul would become a professional snooker player," Kristina Hunter says.

"Yet he just adored it."

His dad recalls how his son "cared little for anything else" except for snooker as a youth.

"He was relentless," he says. "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 aspiring talent made the transition from home play with remarkable ease.

His raw skill would be nurtured by the snooker legend Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now closed venue in the Leeds district of Yeadon.

Rapid Rise: A Star is Born

With his family's urging to do his homework regularly going unheeded as the game dominated, his parents took the "gamble" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully focus on building a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within five years, their young son had won his initial major win, the 1998 Welsh Open.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the involvement of exclusively the best, Hunter was victorious on three occasions, in consecutive years.

'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.

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

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

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

With his natural likability, boyish good looks and honest interview style, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's leading figure for the new 21st Century.

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

A Brave Battle: His Final Years

In that year, a year that should have marked the height of his career, Hunter was told he had cancer and would later undergo cancer therapy.

Multiple anecdotes from across the snooker circuit speak of the man's extraordinary dedication to honor obligations to public appearances and promotional work, all while enduring treatment.

Despite harsh reactions, Hunter continued to compete through the illness and received a tumultuous reception at The Crucible Theatre when he played at the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in the mid-2000s, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its best-loved members.

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

A Foundation for the Future: Inspiring Youth

Hunter's true contribution would be felt not in palaces and castles but in local sports centers across the UK.

The charity in his name, 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 dropped significantly.

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

The Foundation helped lay the groundwork for a huge coaching programme, which has extended playing opportunities to children internationally.

"It would have thrilled him what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a senior official in the sport stated.

Always Remembered: 20 Years Later

Archive videos of their son's matches via the internet help his parents stay "close to him".

"I can bring it up and I can watch Paul whenever I wish," Kristina says. "It's wonderful!"

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she concludes. "At first it was sad, but I'd rather somebody talk than him not be spoken of."

Although he never won the World Championship, the common opinion that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's top honor is ingrained in the sport's history.

The Masters, the competition with which he is forever linked, begins later this month. The winner will lift the Paul Hunter Trophy.

But for all his accomplishments, 20 years after his death it is Paul Hunter's spirit, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is forever celebrated.