'Paul was fun': Honoring the sport's lost great a score of years on.

Everything the Leeds-born talent ever wanted to do was compete on the baize.

A competitive passion, caught at the age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his parents' coffee table in his Leeds home, would lead to a pro playing days that saw him claim six significant titles in a six-year span.

This year marks a score of years since the beloved Hunter passed away from cancer, mere days prior to his birthday marking 28 years.

But in spite of the loss of a once-in-a-generation player that went beyond the game he loved, his enduring mark on snooker and those who followed his career remain as powerful today.

'He just loved it': The Formative Years

"It was impossible to foresee in a billion years our son would become a professional snooker player," Hunter's mum recalls.

"But he just was passionate about it."

Hunter's father recounts how his son "wasn't bothered about anything else" besides snooker as a youth.

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

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a community venue to play on professional-standard tables at the age of eight, the young Hunter made the jump from miniature games with great skill.

His raw skill would be developed by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now defunct club in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Rapid Rise: The Path to Glory

With his mother and father's requests to do his homework often being ignored as the game dominated, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully dedicate himself to building a career in the game.

It was a resounding success. Within half a decade, their adolescent had won his initial major win, the Welsh Open of 1998.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the presence of only the top competitors, 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 approachable nature never faded.

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

"When encountering him you'd enjoy his company," Kristina adds. "He brought joy. He'd make you relaxed."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "funny, kind" and "typically the final guest at the party".

With his effortless appeal, handsome features and candid way with the press, not to mention his immense skill, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new millennium.

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

Courage in Crisis: Illness and Resilience

In that year, a year that should have been the zenith of his talent, Hunter was told he had cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple accounts from across the snooker circuit highlight the man's extraordinary dedication to honor obligations to exhibitions, events and press interviews, all while enduring treatment.

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter kept playing through the illness and received a rapturous applause at The Crucible Theatre when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in the mid-2000s, snooker's tight community lost one of its most popular brothers.

"It's awful," Kristina says. "No parent should experience any mum and dad to go through that pain."

A Lasting Impact: Inspiring Youth

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

The Paul Hunter Foundation, set up before his death, would provide no-cost coaching to young people all over the country.

The initiative was so successful that, according to reports, local youth crime rates in some areas fell sharply.

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

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

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

Forever in Memory: A Lasting Presence

Historic matches of their son's matches via the internet help his parents stay "in touch with his memory".

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

"We are happy to speak about Paul," she concludes. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be recalled."

While he never won the World Championship, the widespread belief that Hunter would have eventually won snooker's greatest prize is a part of the sport's history.

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

But for all his achievements, 20 years after his death it is Paul Hunter's personality, as much his brilliant talent on the table, that will ensure he is never forgotten.