'Paul was fun': Reflecting on the game's departed star 20 years on.
All Paul Hunter ever wanted to do was compete on the baize.
A sporting bug, caught at the age of three with the help of a miniature snooker set on his home's central table in Leeds, would result in a professional career that saw him secure half a dozen major wins in six years.
Now marks two decades since the popular Hunter died from cancer, mere days prior to his twenty-eighth birthday.
But in spite of the passing of a phenomenal skill that transcended the pastime he cherished, his enduring mark on snooker and those who followed his career remain as strong as ever.
'The game was his life': A Childhood Obsession
"It was impossible to foresee in a billion years the boy would become a career sportsman," his mother states.
"But he just adored it."
Hunter's father recounts how his son "cared little for anything else" other than snooker as a child.
"He never stopped," he notes. "He would play 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 aspiring talent made the transition from miniature games with aplomb.
His mercurial talent would be coached by the snooker legend Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now defunct club in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.
Quick Success: A Star is Born
With his parents' pleas to do his homework regularly going unheeded as training came first, his parents took the "gamble" 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 half a decade, their still-teenage son had won his maior professional trophy, the late-nineties Welsh championship.
Considered one of snooker's toughest events to win because of the lineup featuring exclusively the best, Hunter triumphed on three occasions, in consecutive years.
'Paul was fun': A Legacy of Character
But for all his triumphs in the sport, away from the game Hunter's down-to-earth charisma never faded.
"His demeanor was excellent did Paul," Alan says. "He got on with everybody."
"If you met him you'd take to him," Kristina adds. "Paul was fun. He'd make you feel at ease."
Hunter's widow Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "funny, kind" and "always the last to leave the party".
With his natural likability, handsome features and straight-talking media manner, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's poster boy for the modern era.
No wonder then, that he was nicknamed 'The Snooker World's Beckham'.
A Brave Battle: Illness and Resilience
In 2005, a year that should have marked the zenith of his talent, Hunter was found to have cancer and would later undergo aggressive treatment.
Multiple accounts from across the professional tour speak of the man's extraordinary willingness to fulfill commitments to public appearances and promotional work, all while undergoing treatment.
Despite gruelling side effects, Hunter played on through the illness and received a tumultuous reception at The Crucible Theatre when he turned out for the World Championships that year.
When he died in October 2006, snooker's family-like circuit lost one of its best-loved members.
"It is tragic," Kristina says. "It is a terrible thing for any mum and dad to go through that pain."
A Foundation for the Future: Giving Back
Hunter's true impact would be felt not in high society but in snooker halls and clubs across the UK.
The foundation he inspired, set up before his death, would provide no-cost coaching to young people all over the country.
The scheme was so successful that, according to reports, local youth crime rates in some areas fell sharply.
"The idea was for a scheme to help provide a positive outlet," one coach said.
The Foundation helped establish the basis for a huge coaching programme, which has provided playing opportunities to children internationally.
"It would have thrilled him what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a leading figure in the sport stated.
Forever in Memory: 20 Years Later
Archive videos of their son's matches via the internet help his parents stay "close to him".
"I can watch it and I can watch Paul at any moment," Kristina says. "It's a comfort!"
"We are happy to speak about Paul," she concludes. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody mention him than him not be mentioned at all."
Although he never won the World Championship, the common opinion that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's top honor is ingrained in the sport's legend.
The Masters, the competition with which he is most associated, starts later this month. The winner will lift the Paul Hunter Trophy.
But for all his successes, two decades after his death it is Paul Hunter's spirit, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is never forgotten.
