How did they celebrate? ‘With waters,’ he laughs, before offering the surprising revelation that he’s ‘never been to a pub’. ‘You were in a pub for the Euros,’ Lewis chimes in. ‘Oh yeah, I was, for a Doritos advert,’ Mason remembers. One certainly wouldn’t see him at Chelsea haunt the Lillie Langtry – when near Stamford Bridge, he goes ‘incognito’. Cap and sunglasses? ‘I can’t tell you – I’ll be seen.’
So he’s Chelsea through and through – and famously says he ‘bleeds blue’. But what if he were offered – like the prankster and former Aston Villa player Grealish was – a hefty sum to leave his beloved club, say £100 million? ‘I dunno,’ he says quickly. ‘The money is…’ Then he stops. ‘I’ve always obviously been a Chelsea boy. I’m very, very happy here. We’ve been winning some silverware, which is a big goal of mine, I always want to win things.’
So money couldn’t sway him. Perhaps he is a different kind of footballer. ‘He isn’t flashy,’ says Lewis, when I ask what Mount spends his money on. ‘He’s sensible,’ he adds, revealing how Mount was asked to do a photoshoot featuring a private jet, but turned it down for fear of looking like he was showing off. ‘People don’t want to see it,’ says Lewis. ‘That’s why people relate to him.’
He does have an eye for shiny objects, however. Like a magpie, Mount swoops and picks up a giant gold chain necklace from the glittering jewellery selection on offer for the Tatler shoot. He parades it around, saying he ‘likes messing about’. Then everyone stops when his fellow cover star, Emilia Boateng, arrives on set – swan-like in Celia Kritharioti – with a cascade of feathers billowing behind her. ‘And I’m in trackies,’ Mount laughs, before looking sheepish. They are Dior trackies he’s been put in, after all.
Just as well he’s wearing something comfortable – the shoot is like a football match in itself. He’s doing keepy-uppies, pretending to score penalties and smacks one poor assistant in the face with a rogue header. He prances about dressed as Tatler’s Bystander man in a red Ralph Lauren tailcoat saying he feels like the King’s Guard (before marching on the spot, mimicking the Changing of the Guard).
