For a self-confessed sports nerd, becoming fanatical about a 900-year-old alien who travels through space and time in an odd-shaped telephone police box, seemed a little daft.
The heroes from my youth were moustached madmen who terrorised English batsmen, not a bow tie-wearing buffoon, who bounces around from planet to planet battling aliens in a space ship called the TARDIS.
If you haven't worked it out yet, I'm talking about the science fiction phenomenon that is Doctor Who.
Confession time. I've become an appallingly sycophantic super fan of the iconic British TV show because of my now 14-year-old son Finlay.
Like most sports tragics, I had visions of a young Finlay donning a jumper for the Eagles or slicing a ball through point to claim the Ashes.
But instead of chatter about Waugh and Warne, a nine-year-old Finlay started assailing me with endless diatribes about David Tennant (the 10th Doctor) and the Daleks.
Then a funny thing happened: I watched one episode, then another, then another and before I knew it, the show had emotionally clobbered me.
And now I revel in the household squabbles about who is the better Doctor, the best scriptwriter for the show, or the most annoying companion.
When the 10th Doctor regenerated in the episode The End of Time and uttered the immortal words "I don't want to go", I sobbed.
I waited with both expectation and fear, when the youthful Matt Smith (11th Doctor) was replaced by the current Doctor Peter Capaldi.
For the outsider these weekly wranglings about a time-traveling alien may seem pedantic and tedious. Or just plain weird.
But I've come to realise, the frequency and ferocity of these arguments are no different to blokes bleating on about who is a better footy player or cricketer.
And we are not alone in our obsession.
Finlay and I now unashamedly belong to a Perth-based Doctor Who fan club called The West Lodge. We have a family membership, just like other people have for footy clubs (albeit slightly cheaper!).
On the first Saturday of each month, we gather in a hall in South Perth, with a crowd of 30-40 people, to silently watch episodes of the sci-fi series (the crowd is as diverse and quirky as the show).
And I marvel every time at how much pure joy and delight everyone gets from watching the same episode again and again. Honestly, it's like a religious gathering.
So who is the Doctor?
He is a Time Lord. The last of his kind, who comes from an ancient race of Gallifreyans. He has the ability to "regenerate" his body up to 12 times.
The Doctor travels with a companion and uses nothing more than a penlight called a sonic screwdriver to outwit and outsmart villains and monsters.
What makes the Doctor stand out is he exists outside the realm of normal sci-fi heroes. He is non-violent, iconoclastic and there is no hanky panky between himself and his companions.
There are boundless contradictions when it comes to time travel, but they are irrelevant.
As the 10th Doctor explains when pressed, time is actually: "A big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff".
The Doctor is also a walking study in Kantian ethics.
For someone who abhors violence, his ongoing battle to rid the galaxy of the scourge of the Daleks, seems cold and brutal.
But he justifies his actions as being for the greater good of the greatest number of people.
And the fact the Daleks appear nothing more than a toilet plunger and whisk on a large rubbish bin doesn't detract from the sheer beauty of the characters.
While Doctor Who has always relied on the weird, terrifying and deeply unsettling aliens and monsters, the quality of writing of the episodes can sometimes get overlooked.
It is rich and dark at times and there is always a fantastical twist in every episode.
The episode of Vincent and the Doctor (Richard Curtis was a guest writer) is sublime. It is an achingly tender portrayal of Van Gogh's descent into madness.
Former scriptwriter, Douglas Adams, from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame, said in the late 1970s, the challenge of Doctor Who was to make it simple enough for adults and complicated enough for children.
It is a formula that has worked for more than 50 years. As Finlay and I can well attest.
For the record my favourite Doctor is David Tennant, who marginally nudges out Tom Baker. (Fourth Doctor).
And Finlay is headed later this week to the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular, a musical celebration of all things Doctor Who. I'd be there too but I have other, non time travel-related committments.
Finlay's top five episodes (Doctor in brackets):
The War Games (Patrick Troughton)
The Empty Child ((Christopher Eccleston)
The Caves of Androzani (Peter Davison)
The Girl in the Fire Place (David Tennant)
Vincent and the Doctor (Matt Smith)
The Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular is at the Perth Arena on January 31.
