HONG KONG (Reuters) —The fans in Liverpool shirts sang Fields of Anfield Road in the packed lower stands and waved scarves some 6,000 miles from Merseyside.“You’ll never walk alone,” a teenage girl screamed at the Liverpool players on the pitch, before turning to her friends for some giggly banter in Hong Kong’s boisterous Chinese dialect of Cantonese.

Welcome to the far-flung but passionate world of Liverpool’s devoted fan base in Asia where the English Premier League club are taking part in this year’s Barclays Asia Trophy in Hong Kong.

“We want to give the message that we’re true supporters,” said Freddy Fung, 25, who was born and raised in Hong Kong but sprinkles his talk with Liverpudlian slang.

“Sometimes fans in the UK think fans in Asia are like tourists who don’t know about Scouse culture,” Fung said.

“We are real fans. As real as the Scousers who support Liverpool,” Fung added with a laugh before seeing Liverpool cruise to a 3-1 victory over Hong Kong side South China in the tournament.

The Chief Executive of the Premier League, Richard Scudamore wants to showcase and promote Europe’s most lucrative and popular soccer league in its fastest growing market.

“The Premier League has a fantastic following across East Asia, and nowhere more so than Hong Kong,” said Scudamore. Previous pre-season tournaments were held in Thailand and Malaysia.

Liverpool Chief Executive Rick Parry said the Asia trip echoed the aspirations of former manager Bill Shankly who once said he wanted to see Liverpool “conquer the bloody world”.

“Developing a worldwide fan-base is very important for a club of our stature,” Parry wrote on Liverpool’s website.

“It’s all about promoting the club in the best way possible and continuing to maintain our global profile. Trips such as this do have an enormous impact. They are a vital part of our strategy to make Liverpool Football Club the biggest and best in the land,” Parry added.

But rivals Manchester United are well ahead in the world popularity stakes with an estimated 40 million fans in Asia.

Man Utd are currently in nearby Macau for one of their regular summer Asian tours and will play a southern Chinese side on Friday after previous legs in Japan and South Korea.

Chelsea too have made clear the importance of the China market as part of their ambitions to become the world’s biggest club by 2014.

Spanish giants Barcelona will be playing in Hong Kong next month in a further reflection of the region’s importance.