You could be forgiven for wondering if Mason Mount ever feels cut adrift from his roots. The prodigiously talented footballer was just a nervous six-year-old when he started making the journey from his home in Portsmouth to the lauded academy of London super-club, Chelsea.
Suffice to say, this is not the experience of most six-year-old boys. The Chelsea youth system is renowned for drawing together the best young players not just from England but from across the planet. Yet for all his years within this hyper cosmopolitan, ultra competitive elite environment, Mason remains staunchly loyal and grateful to his hometown on the south coast.
“The focus I had from a young age stemmed from being from Portsmouth,” he explains. “It’s a very working-class city; we do everything we can to be successful. This is my hometown and I’ll always see myself as from here.”
In 2023, Mason is Pompey’s most famous son. And Pompey is a city that breeds grafters.
Think of British seaside towns and a flood of images will usually spring to mind. Ice cream sundaes and pleasure piers. Packed beaches and gaming arcades. Yet while Portsmouth has all of these things, at heart it’s a proudly blue-collar port city. One that more than pulls its weight when it comes to industry and a long-time hub for the British army.
When he wasn’t making the roadtrip to and from Chelsea’s Cobham academy centre, Mason was shining his boots and earning his stripes on HMS Excellent — not, as the name might suggest, a Royal Navy warship — but a sports complex on Portsmouth’s Whale Island. This narrow strip of land just off the coast is owned by the Ministry of Defence and off-limits to the wider public. But it was here that Mason’s local youth side, United Services Portsmouth FC, held training. Until 2004, the club’s senior squad was exclusively made up of Royal Navy officers.
“This is obviously the team where it all started for me,” he says, gazing out from the faded plastic seats across United Service’s home ground, the Victory Stadium. “Six-year-old Mason… I don’t think he’d expect myself to be where I am now. What a journey it’s been.”
These early days shaped a career that has taken Mason right to the very top. It was 2019 when he broke through into the Chelsea first team. Within 18 months, he was orchestrating his side’s victory in the UEFA Champions League final. Not many English players have ever experienced this level of success. The trophy is the biggest and most prestigious you can win in club football.
Yet alongside Mason’s immense technical skill, what shines through most on the pitch are his human qualities – his endeavour, intelligence and humility. It’s not just his hometown that made him this way. Mason’s family have been hugely important to him. “I definitely wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for them. My grandad always came to games when I was younger. The toughness, the fight he has… I tried to take all of that and use it in my football.”
Despite everything he’s done in the game to date – the 35 England caps, the World Cup appearances, the two Chelsea Player of the Year awards – Mason is still only 24. This makes him one of the figureheads of a new generation of English stars threatening to dominate world football for the next decade. Yet there’s no danger of this grounded and gifted athlete ever forgetting where he comes from. “I’ll always be a Pompey boy,” he says, smiling.
Credits
Director CHILD
Executive Creative Director Georgina Bacchus
Associate Creative Director Alex LeRose
Senior Account Director Tilly Donohoe
Production Claire Nolan and Amy Wilson
Talent Mason Mount