'Paul was fun': Honoring the game's lost great 20 years on.

All Paul Hunter always wished to do was compete on the baize.

A sporting bug, caught at the very young age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his home's central table in Leeds, would lead to a professional career that saw him win six significant titles in half a dozen years.

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

But in spite of the tragic departure of a once-in-a-generation player that transcended the game he loved, his legacy and impact on the game and those who were close to him persist as powerful today.

'The game was his life': The Formative Years

"We could not have predicted in a billion years Paul would become a professional snooker player," Hunter's mum says.

"But he just loved it."

His dad remembers how his son "showed no interest in anything else" besides snooker as a young boy.

"He never stopped," he notes. "He would play every night after school."

After repeatedly pleading with his dad to take him to a community venue to play on professional-standard tables at the age of eight, the budding player made the leap from miniature games with remarkable ease.

His natural ability would be developed by the former world title holder Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now former establishment in the Leeds district of Yeadon.

Quick Success: The Path to Glory

With his family's urging to do his homework often being ignored as training came first, his parents took the "risk" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully dedicate himself to forging a career in the game.

It proved a masterstroke. Within a short period, their still-teenage son had won his initial major win, the late-nineties Welsh championship.

Considered one of snooker's toughest events to win because of the lineup featuring exclusively the best, Hunter was victorious a trio of times, in the early 2000s.

'Paul was fun': His Enduring Personality

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

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

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

Hunter's widow 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 effortless appeal, youthful appearance and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's leading figure for the new 21st Century.

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

A Brave Battle: His Final Years

In 2005, a year that should have been the zenith of his talent, Hunter was diagnosed with cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple accounts from across the professional tour highlight the man's extraordinary commitment to honor obligations to public appearances and promotional work, all while undergoing treatment.

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter played on through the illness and received a rapturous applause at The Crucible Theatre when he played at the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in October 2006, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its most popular brothers.

"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "It is a terrible thing for any mum and dad to lose a child."

A Lasting Impact: 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 free snooker sessions 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 organizer said.

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

"It would have thrilled him 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 online help his parents stay "close to him".

"I can access it and I can watch Paul anytime," Kristina says. "It's marvellous!"

"We like to reminisce about Paul," she adds. "Initially it was painful, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be spoken of."

Even though he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's top honor is etched into the sport's history.

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

But for all his accomplishments, two decades after his death it is Paul Hunter's character, as much his brilliant talent on the table, that will ensure he is always remembered.