When Middlesbrough attempt to climb out of the relegation zone against Fulham this afternoon, the pressure on every member of the squad will be intense.

But having spoken to Tony McMahon this week, Chief Sports Writer SCOTT WILSON has discovered one Boro player who will be treating the ongoing relegation battle as child’s play.

WHEN Tony McMahon takes to the field this afternoon, he will not just be fighting to protect Middlesbrough’s Premier League status, he will also be fighting to protect his own status in the eyes of his son.

Nothing unusual about that you might think - except that his son is less than four months old.

As Luca McMahon was only born on December 29, he knows nothing of his father’s struggles in Boro’s ongoing relegation battle.

But in years to come, he will no doubt ask what his dad was doing in the first few months he was born.

And McMahon senior admits it would break his heart if he had to admit he was failing to keep Middlesbrough in the Premier League.

“He was born on December 29, so I don’t want him to go through life knowing he was born in a relegation season,”

said the Evenwood-born fullback, who admits the demands of fatherhood have helped him retain a sense of perspective amid the inevitable tensions of a relegation campaign.

“People go through life and look back on the year they were born to see how their football team fared. I want Luca to be looking and saying, ‘That was the year my daddy helped Middlesbrough stay in the Premier League’. That’s what I hope he’ll be saying in the future.”

While McMahon has a deeply personal reason for wanting to keep Boro in the top-flight ahead of this afternoon’s crucial home game with Fulham, he is also aware of the professional incentives that will be on offer in the final six matches of the season.

Unlike almost all of his team-mates, the 23-year-old defender has sampled life in the Championship this season during a four-month loan spell at Sheffield Wednesday.

He made 15 appearances for the Owls, but while he admits Championship football played a crucial role in getting his career back on track following a succession of serious injuries, it is not something he wants to sample again next season.

If life at the bottom of the Premier League is tough, life anywhere in English football’s second tier is even tougher.

“I’ve played in the Championship and I know what it’s all about,” said McMahon. “I had to go and play in the Championship at the start of the season, and that means three games a week – Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday. You don’t tend to get much time on the ball, and it’s a lot rougher than this league “It’s a very hard league, and it’s not always that glamorous. I remember travelling to Reading and only arriving on the coach ten minutes before kick-off.

“The traffic on the A1 was a nightmare. There was an accident and we were stuck there for ages. We’d set off at nine in the morning and had to spend hours in the coach.

As a professional footballer, that’s the last thing you want.

“At the minute, we’re playing in the best league in the world and things like that don’t happen. We’re privileged enough to fly to most away games, but if we don’t get things right in the rest of the season, a lot of that would change.”

And as McMahon knows only too well, football has a tendency to kick people in the teeth.

When he made his senior debut at the age of 18 in a Premier League game at Old Trafford, the youngster was immediately earmarked as a future star.

Five months earlier, he had skippered Middlesbrough to victory in the FA Youth Cup, but in the four-and-a-half years that have passed since, he has made just 23 Premier League starts.

While fellow youthteamers David Wheater, Andrew Taylor and Matthew Bates have established themselves in the first team, a succession of serious injuries have prevented McMahon from making a similarly successful impact.

In the space of 14 months between August 2005 and October 2006, he suffered a dislocated shoulder, a serious cruciate knee ligament injury and a broken leg.

He made five senior appearances in the whole of the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons, so while Middlesbrough’s current predicament is anything but enjoyable, McMahon is simply happy to be back playing football at all.

“There were times when I was really, really low,” he said. “It was horrible. At times, I felt on my own. I would be the first in and the last out every day, and that’s difficult when you’re not playing.

“It wasn’t very nice at all, but those days are behind me now. I’m fit and just glad to be playing again. I’m particularly glad I’m playing for Boro, because this is the club I want to be at.

“I was always so determined to make it here, even when I went to Sheffield Wednesday. I told everyone right from the start I wanted to go back. I went to Hillsborough to prove I could still play in the Premier League. Maybe some people doubted me after all the injuries. Hopefully, I’ve answered those sceptics.”

And now he wants to answer the critics who have written off Middlesbrough’s chances of surviving in the top-flight as well.

With games against Arsenal and Manchester United still to come, today’s game with Fulham is every bit as important as last weekend’s must-win clash against Hull.

But having handled the pressure once, McMahon is confident his team-mates will take another significant step towards safety this afternoon.

“We were in danger of becoming tailed off,” he said.

“But we got the points last weekend and other results went our way. It’s tightened right back up now and we’re back in with a shout.

“We know the importance of the Fulham game. It’s a massive game, just like last week’s . But we responded to that and got three points. We need to do the same today.”