'He was a joy': Honoring the sport's taken talent two decades on.

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

A sporting bug, caught at the very young age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his family's living room table in the city of Leeds, would culminate in a life on the tour that saw him secure six major trophies in a six-year span.

Now marks a score of years since the popular Hunter died from cancer, days short to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But despite the passing of a phenomenal skill that rose above the game he loved, his influence and memory on snooker and those who knew him remain as strong as ever.

'He just loved it': Early Beginnings

"We'd never have known in a billion years our son would become a professional snooker player," his mother recalls.

"Yet he just loved it."

His dad recounts how his son "cared little for anything else" except for snooker as a young boy.

"His dedication was constant," he says. "He practiced every night after school."

After persistently asking his dad to take him to a local club to play on professional-standard tables at the age of eight, the aspiring talent made the leap from miniature games with remarkable ease.

His raw skill would be coached by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from the adjacent city, at a now closed venue in the Leeds district of Yeadon.

Metoric Ascent: The Path to Glory

With his mother and father's requests to do his homework often being ignored as training came first, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully concentrate on carving out a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within half a decade, 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 involvement of elite players only, Hunter was victorious on three occasions, in consecutive years.

'A Cheeky Charm': His Enduring Personality

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

"He was incredibly composed did Paul," Alan says. "He was liked by everybody."

"If you met him you'd take to him," Kristina adds. "Paul was fun. He'd make you relaxed."

Hunter's partner Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "funny, kind" and "always the last to leave the party".

With his easy charm, handsome features and honest interview style, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's leading figure for the new millennium.

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

Courage in Crisis: A Fight Against Cancer

In that year, a year that should have signaled the zenith of his talent, Hunter was diagnosed with cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple accounts from across the sporting world speak of the man's extraordinary dedication to keep promises to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while enduring treatment.

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter played on through the illness and received a tumultuous reception at The famous Sheffield venue 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. "It is a terrible thing for any mum and dad to go through that pain."

An Enduring Legacy: Giving Back

Hunter's true legacy would be felt not in royal circles but in community venues across the UK.

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

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

"The idea was for a program to help offer a constructive activity," one organizer said.

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

"Paul would have loved what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a leading figure in the sport stated.

Never Forgotten: A Lasting Presence

Archive videos of their son's matches online 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 marvellous!"

"We are happy to speak about Paul," she adds. "Initially it was painful, but I'd rather somebody talk than him not be spoken of."

Although he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have eventually won snooker's greatest prize is ingrained in the sport's legend.

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

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