'He brought laughter': Honoring snooker's lost great two decades on.

All the young snooker player ever wanted to do was play snooker.

A competitive passion, developed at the age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his parents' coffee table in the city of Leeds, would lead to a professional career that saw him claim six major trophies in a six-year span.

This year marks two decades since the beloved Hunter passed away from cancer, just days before to his 28th birthday.

But notwithstanding the tragic departure of a phenomenal skill that rose above the game he loved, his influence and memory on the sport and those who knew him persist as strong as ever.

'The game was his life': Early Beginnings

"It was impossible to foresee in a billion years our son would become a career sportsman," Kristina Hunter says.

"However he just was passionate about it."

Hunter's father recounts 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 successfully badgering his dad to take him to a nearby hall to play on regulation tables at the age of eight, the young Hunter made the leap from table top snooker with aplomb.

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

Metoric Ascent: From Teenager to Champion

With his parents' pleas to do his homework often being ignored as the game dominated, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully focus on forging a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within five years, their young son 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 three times, in 2001, 2002 and 2004.

'Paul was fun': The Man Behind the Cue

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

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

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

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "incredible, lively, and kind spirit" who was "humorous, caring" and "never the first to depart from the party".

With his natural likability, handsome features and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his immense skill, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new millennium.

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

Facing Adversity: A Fight Against Cancer

In that year, a year that should have been the height of his career, Hunter was found to have cancer and would later undergo cancer therapy.

Multiple accounts from across the snooker circuit highlight the man's extraordinary commitment 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 World Championship arena when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he died in autumn 2006, snooker's tight community 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 legacy 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 children all over the country.

The scheme was so successful that, according to reports, anti-social behavior in some areas dropped significantly.

"The aim remained for a scheme to help get kids off the street," one coach said.

The Foundation helped pave the way for a huge coaching programme, which has extended playing opportunities to children all over the world.

"Paul would have loved 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 anytime," Kristina says. "It's a comfort!"

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

Although he never won the World Championship, the widespread belief that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's top honor is a part of the sport's history.

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

But for all his accomplishments, 20 years after his death it is Paul Hunter's spirit, as much his dazzling snooker ability, that will ensure he is never forgotten.