“He comes from the Ivory Coast, Kalou, Kalou,

He don't do coke like Adrian Mutu, Mutu,

He crossed the ball from the left,

It landed right on Riise's head,

That's why we love Salomon Kalou,

La la la la la la la la la…”

The song reverberates around the rooftop of the Aurora Hotel in Sydney’s Surry Hills. OK, it’s not Lennon or McCartney but there’s some songcraft here.

As there is in a similarly oft-aired chant about another bitpart Blue, Tiémoué Bakayoko, sung to the tune of Earth, Wind & Fire’s September.

I’m in the company of Australia-based Chelsea fans in the build-up to the pre-season friendly against Tottenham whose followers are presumably holed up in another Sydney hostelry singing along to the back catalogue of Chas and Dave.

Most I’ve already met at the earlier match against more local opposition: Western Sydney Wanderers, and they feel like old friends. Except this time I’m wearing a cap.

This is a result of a one-sided altercation with a hotel shower in which I very much came off worse. The cut on the head coupled with number four on top and number one on the sides crop from Irish Arsenal supporter Warren at El Choppo Barber Shop in Bondi Beach and retro 80s top delivers quite the first impression.

It makes me look like I've come to the party as a Chelsea Headhunter 7,000 miles away from his Fulham Road stomping ground.

Having fallen in love with the Blues through my maternal grandfather, I’m interested in learning other fan origin stories. It transpired that they’re quite relative to mine as family members are often involved.

As is the case with Gareth, whose customer service background helps him run the 2,500-strong CFC Sydney Supporters Club. Growing up in Russell Square, conveniently situated on the Piccadilly Line to nip up to Arsenal with his Gooner schoolmates, Gareth’s parents kiboshed that notion and insisted that he had to attend his first game with an adult.

Up stepped a Chelsea-supporting uncle who took him to Stamford Bridge where he became acquainted with “Kerry Dixon, Joe McLaughlin, John Bumstead, and Graham Roberts” and became hooked for life.

Ditto Matt, an accountant from Norwich, who flirted with United at age seven before avuncular intervention from family based in Kingston-upon-Thames steered him on the right path.

Then there’s Wales-born Russ, secretary of the CFC Melbourne Supporters Club. I first encounter him wielding a Del-Boy-esque suitcase but what is inside, including T-shirts, is quality merch rather than Peckham-level knock-off.

Russ recalls attending his first Chelsea game, away to Arsenal in 1984, sporting “a Lacoste polo shirt, faded Lee jeans, and Pringle jumper.”

It’s not only a family affair for British expats. Aussie Emmat, the chef and owner of upmarket fish and chip shop Kisseafoods in Queensland's Sunshine Coast's Meridian Plains, was a keen footballer as a kid and his mother bought him a Chelsea kit to play in aged 8.

He had a ticket for Chelsea's last visit to Sydney in 2015 but at the last moment had to pull out due to staffing issues. 11 years down the line, he's holding on to his tickets this time around.

Then there’s the USA’s Katie who first became a Chelsea fan after visiting cousins in London, where her dad attended a match.

A media and communications professional, she is on her third Supporters Club (and her third continent to see Chelsea live) having moved to Sydney earlier in 2026 after belonging to groups in her native Atlanta on the East Coast and then in Seattle after moving out West, bringing with her a 2006 Drogba jersey wherever she makes her home.

I reluctantly leave Sydney, a truly great world city that reminds me of London, as Chelsea’s pre-season tour departs Australia for Asia. Next stop is Hong Kong.

All attempts to reach out to Blues fans here fall flat. Whilst my application to join China HK Blues, a group founded by British expats in 1996, is accepted; the confirmation of my membership doesn’t come through until I’ve already returned to the UK. Could Hong Kong being handed back to China one year after the club formation have anything to do with this?

I visit a recommended sports bar. It’s housed, like many HK food and beverage outlets, in a residential block. There’s not much of an atmosphere and the clientele seem more interested in eating than dining, served by a middle-aged woman wearing a top with 69 on the back of it.

The bar is also on the wrong island: Hong Kong, as opposed to Kowloon where the game takes place. In a state-of-the-art stadium built on the site of the old airport.

Arriving at the ground, I head to the bar, famously, at 100 metres, one of the longest in the world. Here I ask for a pint. The server replies, “Draft?” I nod my head, only to be poured a five-pint pitcher. The cold beer does nothing to warm me up in an air-conditioned stadium with its roof on, wearing as I am my 1970s Chelsea top and cargo shorts, given the humid conditions outside.

The Blues fail to sparkle in a 1-0 defeat to Juventus, and most of the local Chelsea fans seem more interested in making a Mexican wave than joining me in a singalong.

It’s a similar story in Jakarta. While the Indonesian capital is the world’s most populous city, with 42 million inhabitants, the stadium is well below capacity.

It doesn’t help that the country’s biggest band is playing an open-air concert next door. My Newcastle United fan of a companion Chris, an old teammate from Gran Canaria’s Veneno veterans football team who left the Canary Islands for Asia, jokes that the atmosphere reminds him of Stamford Bridge.

The Blues do rise to the occasion, at least, to dispatch Ruben Amorim’s AC Milan 3-1.

The crowd’s louder the very next day in Malaysia’s Johor Bahru, the final leg of the tour. Here the stadium is smaller, despite housing an IKEA where you can have pre-match Swedish meatballs, but completely full.

As I learn from Shah(rul), the senior director of the local division of the Malaysian Chelsea Soljabiru, the home side Johor Darul Ta'zim F.C., better known as JDT, are followed by some boisterous supporters with a mini Yellow Wall.

Star names like Pablo Aimar and Jese have played for them. In a measure of Chelsea’s global appeal, I am introduced to the Secretary of the Chelsea FC Supporters Club Singapore, Cindy, who has driven over from the Garden City which is surprisingly close.

In Australia I had spent time with Rahul, originally from Bangladesh, and Saksham who emigrated from Nepal.

I had expected to meet Yudi in Johor Bahru, the chairman and founder of MCS, who last visited the Bridge in 2018 where he was photographed with then chairman Bruce Buck on the pitch and plans to next go to a Chelsea home game in 2028.

Unfortunately, he has to pull out at the last minute for personal reasons. In his place is another Shah(rizal).

Soljabiru’s Chief Operational and Financial guy doesn’t follow Chelsea because of family. When his favourite player Hernan Crespo switched from plying his trade at the San Siro to doing so at Stamford Bridge, Shah followed suit: ditching Inter for Chelsea.

But now it’s about legacy building. He does the quickest Zigger Zagger I have ever heard, that serves as an apt precursor for a rollercoaster 3-3 draw.

Hearing it, I’m transported back to the Aurora and a conversation with the aforementioned Gareth.

“It's all about the next generation. Cultivating passion and love for the Blues. It’s not about being a Cole Palmer fanboy. I like teaching new fans the old songs.”

Thanks to the efforts of the likes of Gareth, we’ll always have Salomon Kalou.