Are you related to Josef Fritzl?
‘Cousins don’t count’ is my family motto. 
If you were born in Wolverhampton that would be ‘cousins only count up to 12’.
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I wonder what happened to Sumo 
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Like @Thanatos says, this question is a bit like asking when did I decide to have brown hair or hazel eyes. It’s a DNA thing that I’ve never been minded to fight.
And now it isn’t there for an undefined period it does feel that there’s a bit of me missing. Not necessarily the most important bit but definitely something who’s absence makes me feel incomplete.
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When I was born!
I also used to catch the 29/529 bus to Wolverhampton as I went to St Chad’s College. So, there were a few Saddlers on that bus!
Not DNA for me. Nobody in my family supported the Saddlers. Nobody in my school did either, as far as I could see.
My dad moved to Walsall after the war. All my relatives on his side were from around Bishop Auckland. My mother was from Vienna - not a hotbed of Saddlers fans.
I was, however, born in the Manor.
My dad wasn’t particularly interested in football. He loved cricket - and played for Durham before the war.
However, he had a slight interest in Newcastle United and took me to Walsall’s match against Newcastle on 29 August 1961. A record attendance of 25,453 spectators and a 1-0 win. In the Second Division as well.
I was hooked. Fantastic game. Fantastic atmosphere. This was the team for me! What could go wrong?
Nothing went wrong. As @matt_saddlesore has pointed out, there have been the occasional low points. But these are far outweighed by the even less frequent high points.
My dad took me to a Wolves game a week or so before Walsall v Newcastle.
Somehow I resisted the temptation.
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Walsall Reserves v Bilston Boxing Day 1950 in the old Birmingham Combination. My Dad, who was with Walsall as a teenager, took me on what must have been the coldest day in living memory. We stood on the Hilary St End and froze.
There will never be a better memory than being behind the goal at Gay Meadow in 1961 when Colin Askey’s header brought us into the fabled lands of Division Two. A mate, who was a Port Vale season ticket-holder, got fed up of hearing about the most important Walsall goal ever scored - by a former Vale legend - and arranged for Colin to send me a 70th birthday card.
I went over to his home in MIlton and gave him Geoff Allman’s ‘50 Finest Matches,’ which naturally featured the Shrewsbury game. We spent a memorable few hours talking about his time in football and his memories of the Walsall team of that time. He confided that he always wore contact lens, but he could only find one when he got to Shrewsbury, so that header was made by an outside-right with’one good eye.’
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You must have some good memories of Palfrey SSS.
Closer to Caldmore Green than to Palfrey, but I used to play for the Mount in the Junior Youth League on Palfrey Park.
All my family supported the Saddlers. I started going with my dad intermittently from age 6 then really caught the bug around 8, then my sister would come, then in later years my mom too. When we moved to Bescot there were 3 generations of us, Dad, Mom, me, sometimes big sis, niece and nephew. My sis is trying to sow the seeds in my nephews girls, one is interested I think. Brother-in law is a villa fan so we’re trying to keep them away from that - they dont need the support like we do.
UTS!!!
Bescot St me right opposite Alf Coopers garage, and went to the Mount.
Sounds like a link here, shady 53. I lived next to Watson’s Off-Licence, and I too went to the Mount.
My old man tried with me. Took me to the Custard Bowl a few times late 70’s and early 80’s, not interested at all.
I always liked football but the game that got me hooked was the 87 Cup Final.
I only really started watching Walsall from about the 93 season. My old man was RAF so we lived away from Walsall. The one game that sticks out…Walsall 1 Leeds United 1 in the cup.
That was it, home and away every week.
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Was that the one in Junction St?
Great fixture, both home and away until flippin’ Phil Masinga came on and ruined it all.
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No, the one on the corner of South Street and Corporation St.
Of course. My dad used to get the xmas booze from there.
Knew a couple from S St.
Steve Steventon, Peter Small who was about 6`8" tall.
Good answer , if even a small amount of the Walsall born glory hunter fans actually supported their home town club it would make things a lot different in the Midlands football pecking order .