'He brought laughter': Remembering the game's taken talent a score of years on.

All the young snooker player truly desired to do was compete on the baize.

A sporting bug, developed at the age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his family's living room table in Leeds, would result in a professional career that saw him win half a dozen major wins in six years.

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

But despite the passing of a phenomenal skill that transcended the sport he adored, his legacy and impact on the game and those who knew him persist as strong as ever.

'He just loved it': Early Beginnings

"We could not have predicted in a billion years Paul would become a pro on the circuit," Kristina Hunter recalls.

"Yet he just loved it."

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

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

After repeatedly pleading with his dad to take him to a local club to play on professional-standard tables at the age of eight, the budding player made the leap from table top snooker with great skill.

His natural ability would be nurtured by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from the adjacent city, at a now defunct club in the Leeds district of Yeadon.

Rapid Rise: A Star is Born

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 mid-teens to fully concentrate on building a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within a short period, their young son had won his first ranking title, the 1998 Welsh Open.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the lineup featuring exclusively the best, Hunter triumphed a trio of times, in consecutive years.

'Paul was fun': His Enduring Personality

But for all his success on the table, away from the game Hunter's approachable nature never left him.

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

"Upon meeting him you'd enjoy his company," Kristina continues. "He was enjoyable. He'd make you feel at ease."

Hunter's partner Lindsey, with whom he had a daughter, describes him as an "amazing, young cheeky beautiful soul" who was "witty, generous" and "typically the final guest at the party".

With his natural likability, handsome features and honest interview style, not to mention his immense skill, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the modern era.

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

A Brave Battle: A Fight Against Cancer

In the mid-2000s, a year that should have marked the peak of his powers, Hunter was told he had cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple anecdotes from across the snooker circuit attest to the man's extraordinary dedication to keep promises to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while enduring treatment.

Despite harsh reactions, Hunter played on through the illness and received a rapturous applause at The famous Sheffield venue when he competed in the World Championships that year.

When he died in autumn 2006, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its most popular brothers.

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

A Foundation for the Future: The Paul Hunter Foundation

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

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

Never Forgotten: Two Decades On

Archive videos of their son's matches on YouTube help his parents stay "close to him".

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

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she adds. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody talk than him not be mentioned at all."

While he never won the World Championship, the common opinion that Hunter would have secured snooker's greatest prize is ingrained in the sport's legend.

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