'He was a joy': Remembering the game's lost great two decades on.

All Paul Hunter ever wanted to do was practice the game.

A love for the game, caught at the very young age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his parents' coffee table in his Leeds home, would result in a pro playing days that saw him secure six significant titles in a six-year span.

This year marks 20 years since the beloved Hunter passed away from cancer, mere days prior to his twenty-eighth birthday.

But in spite of the loss of a generational talent that rose above the game he loved, his enduring mark on the sport and those who followed his career remain as powerful today.

'He just loved it': The Formative Years

"It was impossible to foresee in a lifetime the boy would become a professional snooker player," Kristina Hunter recalls.

"Yet he just was passionate about it."

His dad recounts how his son "showed no interest in anything else" other than snooker as a child.

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

After persistently asking his dad to take him to a local club to play on full-size tables at the age of eight, the young Hunter made the transition from table top snooker with remarkable ease.

His mercurial talent would be nurtured by the former world title holder Joe Johnson, from neighbouring Bradford, at a now closed venue in the Leeds district of Yeadon.

Quick Success: The Path to Glory

With his parents' pleas to do his homework regularly going unheeded as training came first, his parents took the "risk" of taking Hunter out of school at the mid-teens to fully concentrate on building a career in the game.

It was a resounding success. Within five years, their adolescent had won his maior professional trophy, the 1998 Welsh Open.

Considered one of snooker's most difficult competitions to win because of the lineup featuring exclusively the best, Hunter won on three occasions, in consecutive years.

'Paul was fun': The Man Behind the Cue

But for all his triumphs in the sport, away from the game Hunter's down-to-earth charisma never deserted him.

"He had a great temperament did Paul," Alan says. "He connected with everybody."

"If you met him you'd like him," Kristina adds. "He brought joy. He'd make you relaxed."

Hunter's widow Lindsey, with whom he had a daughter, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "humorous, caring" and "typically the final guest at the party".

With his natural likability, boyish good looks and candid way with the press, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new millennium.

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

A Brave Battle: His Final Years

In the mid-2000s, a year that should have been the peak of his powers, Hunter was told he had 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 enduring treatment.

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

When he died in the mid-2000s, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its best-loved members.

"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "No parent should experience any mum and dad to go through that pain."

A Foundation for the Future: The Paul Hunter Foundation

Hunter's true legacy would be felt not in palaces and castles but in snooker halls and clubs across the UK.

The Paul Hunter Foundation, set up before his death, would provide accessible training to youths all over the country.

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

"The aim remained for a program to help provide a positive outlet," one organizer said.

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

"He would have embraced what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a senior official in the sport stated.

Forever in Memory: Two Decades On

Historic matches of their son's matches online help his parents stay "close to him".

"I can bring it up and I can watch Paul whenever I wish," Kristina says. "It's marvellous!"

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

Even though he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have secured snooker's greatest prize 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, a generation after his death it is Paul Hunter's character, as much his brilliant talent on the table, that will ensure he is forever celebrated.