'He brought laughter': Reflecting on the sport's lost great a score of years on.
Everything Paul Hunter ever wanted to do was play snooker.
A competitive passion, caught at the very young age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his family's living room table in Leeds, would lead to a professional career that saw him claim six significant titles in six years.
The present year marks 20 years since the adored Hunter died from cancer, just days before to his birthday marking 28 years.
But despite the passing of a generational talent that went beyond the game he loved, his legacy and impact on the sport and those who knew him remain as powerful today.
'The game was his life': A Childhood Obsession
"We'd never have known in a billion years the boy would become a professional snooker player," Kristina Hunter says.
"However he just loved it."
His dad recalls how his son "cared little for anything else" other than snooker as a child.
"His dedication was constant," he adds. "He competed 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 aspiring talent made the transition from table top snooker with aplomb.
His raw skill would be nurtured by the snooker legend Joe Johnson, from neighbouring Bradford, at a now former establishment in the Leeds district of Yeadon.
Quick Success: The Path to Glory
With his parents' pleas to do his homework often being ignored as practice took priority, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully concentrate on building a career in the game.
It proved a masterstroke. Within half a decade, their adolescent had won his initial major win, the Welsh Open of 1998.
Considered one of snooker's toughest events to win because of the involvement of elite players only, Hunter won a trio of times, in consecutive years.
'A Gracious Competitor': 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 take to him," Kristina adds. "Paul was fun. He'd make you relaxed."
Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had a child, 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, handsome features and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his considerable talent, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new 21st Century.
No wonder then, that he was dubbed 'The Beckham of the Baize'.
Courage in Crisis: Illness and Resilience
In that year, a year that should have been the peak of his powers, Hunter was diagnosed with cancer and would later undergo aggressive treatment.
Multiple accounts from across the professional tour attest to the man's extraordinary commitment to fulfill commitments to charity matches, tournaments, and media duties, all while enduring treatment.
Despite harsh reactions, Hunter played on through the illness and received a standing ovation at The Crucible Theatre when he competed in the World Championships that year.
When he succumbed in the mid-2000s, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its most popular brothers.
"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "I wouldn't wish any mum and dad to suffer such a loss."
An Enduring Legacy: Giving Back
Hunter's true impact would be felt not in palaces and castles but in snooker halls and clubs 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, local youth crime rates in some areas plummeted.
"The idea was for a scheme to help offer a constructive activity," one official said.
The Foundation helped pave the way for a significant coaching programme, which has extended 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 via the internet help his parents stay "connected to him".
"I can access it and I can watch Paul whenever I wish," Kristina says. "It's marvellous!"
"We don't mind talking about Paul," she continues. "Initially it was painful, but I'd rather somebody talk than him not be mentioned at all."
Although he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have eventually won snooker's top honor is ingrained in the sport's folklore.
The Masters, the competition with which he is most associated, 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 spirit, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is always remembered.
