HAD he been playing today, Peter Noble may never been given the chance to grace Turf Moor and become one of the Clarets finest players of his generation.

The goal-scoring midfielder, who started his Burnley career as a full-back, damaged a knee so badly as a young striker with Newcastle United that he was advised to hang up his boots.

Instead he beat the pain to taste cup glory with Swindon Town and top-level First Division football with Burnley.

But despite his bravery, modern medical checks might have nipped Noble's career in the bud.

By his own admission the medical that took him to Swindon was more of an ears, nose and throat job.

And when he signed for Burnley in June 1973, the medics said that his knee was "like a packet of crisps."

Noble admitted: "I was very lucky when I signed for Burnley. I went for my medical and they said there was no way they should sign me because I had a knee like a packet of crisps.

"Jimmy Adamson said did I think I could play for three years. I said 'yes' so he tore up the bit of paper and threw it in the bin. And I didn't miss many games."

Noble was in his early twenties at Newcastle when he damaged the medial and lateral ligaments in his knee and ended up in plaster for nine months.

Even when he returned to action he struggled to shake off the effects of the injury and Newcastle manager Joe Harvey was among those who urged him to quit.

However, Consett-born Noble was made of sterner stuff and refused to give up.

He said: "The specialist said I would be a cripple but I took a gamble and said 'get me a move.'

"I kept going through the pain barrier and eventually got a move to Swindon.

"It used to kill me but eventually I didn't think about it. I have never been able to bend my knee all the way back.

"If I went up for a header and fell backwards and my heel hit my bum, I used to shake for about 10 minutes.

"If I was falling I used to try and twist round and land on my front." Remarkably, Noble went on to play almost 600 League games, with 243 of those coming in a Burnley shirt. In all he made 298 appearances, plus two as substitute, for the Clarets and scored 80 goals.

That goal-scoring art had been nurtured at Swindon, where he scored 62 League goals and helped the Robins to win the Third Division Championship, the League Cup and the Anglo-Italian Cup before changes of personnel and tactics at the County Ground forced him to seek a fresh challenge.

He explained: "Swindon sold Don Rogers and a few other good players. I could see them struggling a little bit and they also changed their manager.

"Dave Mackay left and Les Allen took over and we didn't really get on so I asked for a move.

"I played up front for Swindon and Newcastle but when the new manager came in at Swindon he started to play me in the middle of the park.

"I was pretty happy about that but things weren't going well so I was running my legs off in the middle of the park and getting nowhere.

"Five or six clubs came in for me. Frank Burrows drove me up the motorway and I met about four managers. Jimmy Adamson was one of them.

"Burnley had just got promoted to the First Division and the others were in the Second.

"Portsmouth had just bought Peter Marinello and were supposed to be buying a few. I could have got more money there but I wanted to go into the First Division." Adamson had also earmarked Noble as an attack-minded midfield player, although his first season at Turf Moor was played exclusively as a full-back as the Clarets finished sixth in Division One and also reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup where they were to lose to Noble's former club Newcastle.

"When Jimmy Adamson signed me and I came to Burnley he knew I could play anywhere," Noble added.

"In my first game he put me at sub, which I had no problem with having just signed.

"But luckily for me and unluckily for Mick Docherty he did his cruciate ligament about 15 minutes into the game and the manager didn't want to change the pattern so he said 'can you play full-back?'.

"I said I hadn't played there before but it can't be any different. I ended up playing the full season there and at the end I got voted full-back of the season in one paper."

Successful he may have been but Noble wasn't fulfilled, having previously played with the ball and opponents coming at him from all angles.

"I thought it was a piece of cake and I got bored with it," he admitted.

"In those days they stopped playing with wingers. I think I only played against two all season, Gordon Taylor at Birmingham and someone at Norwich.

"Next season I said I would prefer to play in midfield or up front. Ian Brennan came in and Keith Newton switched over and they put me in the middle of the park. It all started from there."

Having moved into midfield, Noble got comfortably into double figures for four of the next five seasons, finishing top scorer with 17 goals in 1975/76, 13 of which came in the league as Burnley were relegated.

"If the opposition was lazy and didn't track you I used to come late into the box. I was quite quick in the box and I got a lot of goals like that.

"I was also good in the air for a little lad. I had a good spring in those days and centre-halves would look at you and think you couldn't jump." Noble was also helped by a faultless penalty record. His 28 out of 28 -- all taken for Burnley -- earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

"Leighton James was taking them but he missed two off the belt and said he wasn't taking them any more.

"Jimmy Adamson asked if I fancied taking them and as a goalscorer I thought it was the easier way, to score from 12 yards," recalled Noble, who notched twice from the spot on the day he put four past Norwich in a remarkable 4-4 draw at Turf Moor in September, 1975.

"I had some practice and for the first two I was a bit nervous but then I thought how couldn't you score from 12 yards? I didn't think I would miss, and luckily I didn't.

"I used to run up and then look up at the last minute. If the keeper was going one way I would go the other side and if he didn't I would have made my mind up which way I was going and where I was going to hit it."

Noble was a vital cog in Burnley's last great team as the likes of Keith Newton, Martin Dobson, Colin Waldron, Paul Fletcher, Leighton James and Bryan Flynn preserved the club's status as a major force nationwide.

"Jimmy Adamson always had a great team spirit. Everyone did their little job and complemented each other, apart from Taffy, who was brilliant at the time. He just went past people and whipped the ball in and I said 'thank-you very much.'" "I won more things with Swindon but I played my best football at Burnley," said Noble.

Sadly, though, the decline wasn't far away and in 1976 Burnley were relegated and on the slippery slope that led to the bottom of the Football League.

"Burnley had a good side and we had three or four brilliant seasons before Bob Lord had to sell to keep the club going. They sold some of the good players and they didn't get replaced," Noble recalled.

"Joe Brown took over and made me captain but I could see Bob Lord selling players like Dobbo, Brian Flynn, Taffy and Geoff Nulty and not replacing them. We went down to the Second Division and battled and battled to stop in. It was demoralising for players knowing that we weren't winning anything and it was hard, but I loved the club so I stopped."

Eventually though, even Noble reached the end of the road and in January, 1980, he left Burnley to sign for Stan Ternent at Blackpool.

At the seaside, he chalked up another 100 games and nearly 20 goals before retiring at 37 -- not bad for someone with a dodgy knee.