Career Milestone for Marc McCallum

LThe victory over East Fife on Saturday past marked another milestone in the career of long serving and highly popular Forfar Athletic goalkeeper Marc McCallum, with another hopefully on the immediate horizon.

It was indeed fitting that the custodian marked his 321st competitive appearance for the ‘Loons’ with a clean sheet as it was a fixture that saw him become the leading appearance holder in the club’s history as a last line of defence. The match against the Fifers managed coincidently by Dick Campbell who gave Marc his Athies debut away back in the 2011/12 campaign saw the born and bred Forfarian pass ‘Loons’ legend of the 1980’s Stewart Kennedy’s previous record of 320 appearances.

Amazingly Marc who made his debut for Forfar on loan from Dundee United in January, 2012 against Stenhousemuir has missed only nine games in total since returning in the summer of 2017 after a one year spell down at Plymouth Argyle. Six of those games came as injury took its toll in the highly truncated covid struck campaign of 2020/21. He has in fact been an ever present in five of his eight seasons at the club, this season to date included, an astonishing level of consistency, not to mention fitness in the line of duty.

Another landmark lies in wait for Marc. Should Marc and it is highly likely be between the sticks for the away fixture at Clyde this coming weekend and the visit of Bonnyrigg on Saturday week, he will also move into illustrious company as one of the top ten appearance holders in the history of the club. Marc will take over from Raymond Lorimer in that tenth spot, making him only the third player in the club’s history, Doug Berrie and Alan Smart, another born and bred Forfar ‘loon’ the others to secure in a place in that top ten ranking from out with players of that golden era at Station Park of the seventies and eighties.

Marc is in fact more than likely to move up to eighth spot in the rankings early next season with the appearances achieved by Billy Gallacher and Archie Knox another two names that simply roll off the tongues of Forfar Athletic fans of a certain era well within his ‘grasp.’

Marc’s career record with the ‘Loons’ to date is as follows;-

2011/12 - 8 appearances
2017/18 - 42 appearances – ever present
2018/19 - 43 appearances – missed 2 games
2019/20 - 35 appearances – ever present
2020/21 - 22 appearances – missed 6 games
2021/22 - 44 appearances – missed 1 game
2022/23 - 43 appearances – ever present
2023/24 - 44 appearances – ever present
2024/25 - 40 appearances to date

Remarkable indeed, congratulations and thanks Marc firstly on your loyalty to your hometown club and a record to date to be proud of and as they say in Scotland, ‘lang may yer lum reek.’