Football enthusiast Stephen Crean was asked "do you want to die?" before being repeatedly stabbed by a suspected knifeman on a train from Huntingdon .

Mr Crean, 61, felt he had no other option but to defend himself with his bare hands when the man approached him with a "sword-type thing".

He was travelling back to his home in south-west London after watching Nottingham Forest's 2-2 draw with Manchester United on Saturday, when a young woman ran through his carriage shouting "knife, knife, there's a man with a big knife".

Mr Crean said passengers fled down the carriage into the buffet car of the LNER train from Doncaster to London, adding: "There was nowhere to go. I didn't have much choice."

He recounted to the PA news agency how the assailant asked if he wanted to die before he felt

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