Happy and happier: Best mates Mason Mount and Declan Rice on journey from Chelsea academy to England internationals

The pair met as Chelsea schoolboys as under-8s and have now shared the pitch as England senior internationals – but remain as close as ever ahead of their first meeting as opponents on Saturday

Declan Rice and Mason Mount pose for a photograph (Rex)

Mason Mount and Declan Rice are shaking with laughter together as the England teammates recall just how much time they have spent together.

“We go down to breakfast together, we go to lunch together, dinner together, always together,” Mount enthuses. “So some of the boys are like…”

Rice then naturally finishes his best mate’s sentence. “… ‘joined at the hip you two’!”

“They call us ‘dumb and dumber!’” Mount adds.

You realise that’s just wrong after a spending mere minutes with the two. Happy and happier, maybe, especially in each other’s company.

There’s also the way, ahead of their first senior game against each other, they’re talking with such enthusiasm – and memory – about some of their most memorable games together as Chelsea youths.

“It worked on the pitch as well,” Mount says of their friendship. “We both played in midfield. We were speaking about tournaments we have played together, we played in one in Holland when we were 11 or 12 and won it, and in the semi-final we played Anderlecht and there was this player for them, unreal.”

Rice naturally takes it up without needing the cue.

“Franco Antonucci – and me and him said, ‘we are not having this, this is not happening at all’. The whole talk was this Anderlecht team are going to go on and win it easy. We stepped on the pitch, us two, running around like mad men. We actually marked him out of the game, and we won 2-0 and then went on to win the tournament.

Declan Rice and Mason Mount pose for a photograph (The FA/REX/Shutterstock) (Rex)

“We have been so close as friends, on the pitch there is that level of understanding. And if he goes to war, I go with him. It’s like that.”

You certainly get that sense. It’s not quite going to be like that this weekend, mind. They are speaking in a joint Chelsea and West Ham United interview ahead of Saturday’s match at Stamford Bridge, and the rancour between the two sets of supporters is going to feel completely removed from the real warmth between two of their great young hopes as they speak here at The Juice Bar in Cobham.

It’s hard not to be taken by their sheer enthusiasm. It would be natural for two men who have both recently turned 20 to be a little reserved or callow in an interview with – let’s face it – a group of middle-aged journalists they have nothing in common with, but the reality is the opposite.

They’re so comfortable in each other’s company that they’re perfectly content to just keep talking about the good old days, and the hopefully better days to come. There’s barely a need to ask questions. The interview just goes with their endearing enthusiasm. At one point, a press officer tells the group that there’s only a few minutes left, but Rice says he’ll happily keep going.

The West Ham player feels the more eccentric of the two, and certainly the joker. Mount does a good job in setting him up, though.

Mount: “He was always the one making everyone laugh.”

Rice: “I was the class clown when I was younger.”

Mount: “Yeah, he used to do very good impressions.

Few were safe, but they must feel so safe in their own little world.

“When we are with England, in a room together, playing PS4 or what not, I will just be making him laugh,” Rice says. “We will be in hysterics together, saying things to each other, doing impressions, what not. It is brilliant.”

That friendship is a proper childhood friendship, coming from when Rice started training at Chelsea at the age of eight. Mount is the older by a mere four days.

“We met at the training ground, it would have been on a Tuesday night training,” Rice says. “He was there from under-6 at Chelsea. I came a bit later, signed when I was 8. We were seeing each other four times a week from the age of eight, and that was up until we were 14. That’s where it all started, on the astroturf at Chelsea, running round, little kids.”

Rice and Mount joke during England training together (Action)

Mount: “And we kind of just hit it off straight away and we were really close. And it stayed like that for ages.”

Rice: “The one thing that struck me when I arrived, that connection was there automatically. Even from when we were literally warming up, we would get there 20 minutes before, and we would just be kicking the ball together, just passing it.”

There’s that infectious pride you’d recognise in any young footballer when asked what they won together.

“What didn’t we win?” Rice says.

Mount: “There was loads wasn’t there?

Rice: “Mate, we won absolutely…”

Mount: “There was a tournament in Holland at Venlo so we won that.

Rice: “I think every tournament that we went on as a 99 group we got to the final. We won Venlo, we won Belgium, Brussels. We won Bierbeck. We won Willem.

Mount: “Willem II, yeah.”

Rice: “We won another one in Holland. He won player of the tournament a couple of times. The Anderlecht kid managed to win player of the tournament in the one when we knocked them out in the semis. We won Premier League tournaments.”

Mount: “A couple of PL tournaments.”

A couple of good kids just enjoying themselves, in stark contrast to the perceptions of many young footballers their age.

It’s put to them – in, it must be stressed, a comic tone – whether people think they’re strange.

“Yeah!” Mount says.

Not least their girlfriends.

“My missus is quite worried,” Rice laughs. “That’s genuinely being serious. Oh she’s just always… ‘You two… you love him more than you love me’. Honestly. We just get it in the neck all the time. But they need to understand the friendship.”

They would have got a lot of understanding this summer, and the source of that famous viral video of Rice… waking up.

Rice: “We were together, for first time ever.

Mount: We’ve always been close, but never really done something like that. You just don’t have time, didn’t have time to go away with each other, one’s at another club, so he might have games or something like that, so it’s always difficult to get away. We managed to do it, and obviously spending time together, 24/7, and having a laugh, you kind of do get a bit closer – if it’s possible.”

Then there’s the implicitly understood cue, and the catch.

Rice: “I’m gonna say something, I’m gonna say something!

Mount: “Go on…”

Rice: “The holiday, it wasn’t planned to go together… I had come back from being at the Nations League, he came back from being with the 21s. He came out to Dubai and I was already out there. We had no intention of meeting up but once I knew he was out there that was it. We’re meeting up! And it was literally five days straight hanging out with each other.”

Mount: “Girlfriends out the window.”

Girlfriends must have been delighted?

Rice: “They were fuming. But it was ‘meet at the mall, go out and do an activity, go out to the desert, go on the boat, do the jetski.’”

It was the boat that led to that much memed video of Rice’s reaction.

Rice: “Go on mate, you got me, so you explain.”

Rice congratulates Mount after scoring for England (Getty)

Mount: “So we was on the boat for the day, just enjoying ourselves. He was so red, like a tomato. Burnt. So he had to go inside and 30 seconds from sitting down, he’s snoring away, he’s like fully asleep, he’s conked out, so I went over. Obviously this quite scared him, and as soon as it happened I realised this video I had was the best video I’m ever going to have… “

Rice: “When my eyes fully opened, he’s on the floor in hysterics, like that, showing his missus, going ‘oh my God, look at this video’, they’re both crying, I could not believe what happened. Only when I got back to the hotel I thought ‘that video’s bad’.”

Mount: “We was just watching it for a half-hour afterwards.”

Rice: “The women’s World Cup was on at the time, and I remember being sat in the hotel with my missus, so he obviously put the video up. I said to my missus ‘watch this’, I leave my phone for 10-15 minutes, I come back to my phone, right, it’s never blown up so much. Messages, people on Twitter, people turning it into memes!, everything I was like, ‘listen mate, you’ve ruined me holiday’.”

It was all just a throwback to when they were kids.

“We always used to stay at each other’s house on a Saturday,” Rice says. “I remember going to Portsmouth all the time, at his house. They were the best times for me. I would get there, he had a trampoline in the back garden, a football goal, on the BMXs on the streets around Portsmouth. It was the same when he came to me around here [in Kingston].

“We went to Laser Quest a lot… then on Saturdays my dad would always say ‘don’t do anything, conserve your energy.”

That ensured their families became almost as close as they did.

“Yeah, really close,” Mount explains. “Ever since eight-years-old and they still stay in contact. Our mums are always meeting up, going out for coffees and that.”

Rice: “I think they’re sitting together at the game on Saturday.”

This closeness was never better illustrated than when they were finally split up, as Rice was released by Chelsea in 2015.

Their mothers were crying, to go with Rice’s tears.

“It was really tough for me,” he explains. “I’d been seeing him four times a week from the age of seven, him being my best mate, being with him all the time, it was really tough.

“Chelsea was all I knew, all my family knew, and having to move to West Ham I didn’t know what was going to happen.

“Being away from home, not seeing my mum and dad, there were so many different things that were a part of me moving to West Ham that I can say now probably shaped me into the person I am now.

“I needed that experience to kind of make me into a man. Looking back on it, it was tough. I remember being in my bed, calling my mum saying ‘I don’t like it’ – I hated being away from home.

My mum called up the digs lady seeing if I was alright. She only told me this last year, saying she used to call her up seeing if I was alright. But I got through it in the end and that’s the main thing. I just had a strong mentality that I wanted to succeed.”

From listening to Mount, though, you get the sense it was almost as tough for him – especially since it was a surprise as everyone fully expected Rice to be kept on.

“It was very tough,” Mount remembers. “My best mate, we had been together for a long time. As we spoke about, our families were very close. My mum and his mum were on the phone crying together because it was such a big shock, you never saw it coming. Dec says he never saw it coming, I never saw it coming, but as soon as it happened and a year goes on, I know what kind of mentality Dec has and what type of person he is, so I knew it wouldn’t get him down. Obviously he got very down at the beginning but I knew it wouldn’t break him, I knew he would bounce back stronger.

“I knew that wasn’t going to break him, it would definitely make him.”

Mount says such a shock strengthened his resolve to take his own dad’s advice and “treat every training session like it’s your last”.

Rice however freely says Mount was one of the better players there, if not the best.

“My dad used to describe him as a little bumble bee in a jar and he used to say that because on the pitch he would just be that annoying player who runs around and he does it for Chelsea now. He presses so well, just running round nicking the ball, and in the end he was just running rings around players, whipping them top corners and threading people through … but that was just because I let you play! I won the ball and just give it to him and he did the rest but obviously people don’t recognise that!”

Mount: “He sat in, breaks it all up, gives it to me.”

Rice: “But I remember him being player of the tournament two or three times. It was too easy for him.”

This is the likely challenge for Rice and his teammates on Saturday, but he says that one in particular has almost as much admiration for Mount as he does.

“Mark Noble’s our captain and he absolutely loves Mase so much,” Rice reveals. “He’s speaking about him all the time. He speaks about his goals. He’s met Nobes a couple of times. He’s already said to me the other day ‘We’re gonna have to chase that little fucker around on Saturday’. And I’m saying ‘Yeah, I know!’ But them two have grown really close as well and that’s just because Mark is an older head and he’s seen how well he’s doing there. He’s been there and done it and he’s just buzzing because he knows he’s best friends with me. For me and Nobes against you in midfield you know it’s going to be a big battle.”

But not, as in those youth days, any kind of war.

Rice is asked whether he’ll put in a typical reducer early on.

“If the ball’s there to be won, I have to win it!” Rice maintains.

“Even if he does, we’ll just laugh with each other,” Mount adds.

“I think our parents would just laugh to be honest,” Rice says. “If I kick him and I hurt him, obviously I’m going to go and see if he’s alright.”

That isn’t the way these fixtures usually go – but it is the way this friendship goes.

“He’ll probably give me a lift home,” Rice says.

“Depending on the result,” Mount says with a laugh, something that has soundtracked most of their time together.