Gearbox/Clutch rattle.

My fiance has just bought her 3rd successive Fabia Classic 1.4 8v.

It's covered 64,000 miles and the engine sounds relatively ok, I've done the usual oil change and filter + plugs as you could have gapped the plugs with a phone book.

It has the beginnings of the usual timing chain rattle which isn't worrying me (I have a replacement), however tonight I noticed a strange noise coming from the clutch/gearbox area.

The best way to describe the noise would be sounding like a regular 'chakka-chakka-chakka' noise. I suspected big end noise but this was proven untrue when someone pressed the clutch and the noise stopped.

Best part of it is that her old car (still sitting in the back garden) has 147,000 miles on it and doesn't have anything like this.

Is there anything which commonly fails that could cause this?

Anything I should look out for?

Cheers, Dave.