Waiting for Torquay United youth team players making their full debuts for the Gulls, it seems, is like waiting for buses, you spend a long time waiting for one and then two come along at once.
Following Niall Thompson's full debut for Torquay against Rochdale last week, the first full debut by a Gulls youth product since Jimmy Benefield in 2003, Kirtys MacKenzie has also made the step up from youth graduate to first team debutante.
He marked his first start for Torquay against Port Vale with an assured showing at centre back.
The development of the pair is a testament to the hard work of the youth development department at Plainmoor, now headed by Geoff Harrop, since it was relaunched in 2007 after originally being closed down by former Chairman Mike Bateson in 2004.
However, the real hard work for both Thompson and MacKenzie starts now.
One test of the real strength of youth development scheme at any football is not on whether it is able to produce players who generate big transfer fees, it's whether it can unearth players who can go on to become regulars in the first team.
The last two players to progress from the Plainmoor youth ranks in recent times and then went on to make over 100 appearances for the Gulls' first XI were Matt Hockley (2000-2008) and Steve Tully (1997-2002).
Both of the aforementioned players are still playing, Hockley for Bideford in the Evo-Stik Southern Premier) and Tully for Exeter City in Npower League Two, but before them you have to go back to Tony Bedeau (1995-2006 & 2007-2008) and Wayne Thomas (1995-2000) to find former youth team graduates who had become first team regulars.
Before their emergence, you also had the likes of Darren Moore, Chris Curran and Duane Darby playing regularly in the first team and then there was also Lee Sharpe, who made 19 appearances in the 1987-88 season before he was whisked off to Old Trafford by Sir Alex Ferguson.
It is also worth noting that players such as Garry Monk, Matthew Gregg, Luke Guttridge and Mike Williamson who had had short spells with the Gulls before moving on to other clubs after coming through the club's youth set up.
Questions will asked about why the Gulls youth system had stopped unearthing players worthy enough of first team football such as coaching and scouting of players.
One factor could be attributed to the departure of Chief Scout John James to Plymouth Argyle in the late 1990's.
It is no coincidence that during his time at Home Park, James identified a number of young players from across the South West, who have featured in the Pilgrims first team, including Brixham born Dan Gosling, who has since appeared for Everton and Newcastle United.
The fact that Gosling moved from Home Park to Everton for £2.5million in January 2008 is one that many of the Plainmoor faithful would find quite frustrating given that Gosling grew up virtually on the Gulls' doorstep and played local youth football in and around the Bay.
However, now the Plainmoor youth department is now back up and running and for messrs Thompson, MacKenzie et al there is an opportunity to progress with their careers as footballers which wouldn't have been available to them several years ago.
