Jonathan Gjoshe was just settling in for a train ride home from Doncaster to London when the attack began.
"I was on the train, just chilling. Suddenly, someone's come over my shoulder, and stabbed me," the Scunthorpe United defender told BBC Sport, speaking publicly about the November 1 attack for the first time.
Gjoshe, 23, was weeks into his first season with the club when he boarded the train. He now describes what happened next in detail that is difficult to hear. "I got stabbed on the shoulder first," he said. "I remember jumping over the table, jumping over the chairs. I was just running down the corridor, telling people, 'there's a guy with a knife, run, I've been stabbed, run, run, run'. I was screaming. I think I was the first person that got stabbed. I felt the pain. But adrenaline kicked in."
He credited a split-second decision with saving his life. "That split second, me jumping over the table, saved me. All I thought about was just running for my life, getting off that train. As I got down to the first or second carriage, I pulled the alarm, and was just drenched with blood."
Gjoshe was one of 11 passengers seriously injured in the attack as the train moved through Cambridgeshire. The train made an emergency stop at Huntingdon, where armed police were waiting. A fellow passenger provided first aid before paramedics rushed Gjoshe to the hospital from the station car park.
It was only after surgery that he learned the full extent of his injuries: seven wounds to his bicep, shoulder, and arm. Doctors told him the knife had gone through his muscles and came fractionally close to hitting a nerve. "It's not much from the nerve. You're very lucky," he was told.
The fear that his career might be over was immediate. "I was very worried. Just thinking, 'what damage has happened to me?' I didn't have a clue until I had the surgery," he said.
The days after surgery brought their own complications. "They had to move me from ward to ward because of the media that were coming there looking for me," Gjoshe recalled. He declined the many interview requests the club received and focused on his recovery.
He also reflected on the randomness of being on the train at all. "Normally I would drive back down to London. That was the first time I got on a train to go back. What's the chance of that happening? It's crazy."
Gjoshe returned to full training in March, which he called "a big relief. I started to get the movement of my arm, day by day it was getting better. It was an amazing feeling." Six months after the attack, he is now looking for a new club.
