“Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz, Hitler’s gonna gas them again. We can’t stop ‘em, the Yids from Tottenham, the Yids from White Hart Lane.”

A woman no older than 20 proudly sang these words on the busy 23:41 service from London Kings Cross to Cambridge, the night Arsenal beat Olympiakos 2-1 in the Champions League.

When she boarded the train at Finsbury Park, she was in a jovial enough mood. Arsenal had won, and she was looking forward to the north London derby that weekend by standing at the end of the aisle and singing a few of the ‘less offensive’ anti-Tottenham chants more commonplace at Arsenal games.

“Double, double, double, Sol Campbell has won the double,” she gleefully exclaimed, as her two oafish, middle-aged male companions sat slumped, drunk in the corner.

Anyone who has been on a train when a group of drunks are making noisy fools of themselves will know how awkward and sometimes intimidating it can feel, but at this stage I don’t mind admitting I was singing along in my head to her Sol Campbell ditty, with half a smile on my face.

I should say at this point that I’m an Arsenal fan, but I hadn’t been to the game that night. I had watched the first half in a pub, before going to the Everyman Cinema in Belsize Park to watch Soka Africa, as part of the Kicking and Screaming Football Film Festival.

My attendance at this event and the relaxed derision of the murder of six million Jewish people going on in front of me are closely and coincidently linked. Before Soka Africa, a short film called The Y Word, about anti-Semitic chanting at football matches, was shown. It features YouTube footage of the very chant the girl was singing.

I found it incredible that the first time I had ever heard this song in public came a couple of hours after I knew it existed. It was the first time I had ever heard a racist chant that brutal, and I’ve been going to Arsenal games on a consistent basis since 1995.

A few people, on their way home from work or the theatre or the match, were, unbelievably, laughing. Not out loud, just chuckling to themselves, almost scared, as if they were worried about being caught not laughing at the bully’s joke in the playground. The rest sat quietly, avoiding all confrontation.

I was sat facing the woman, about halfway down the carriage, and the continued non-intervention of my fellow travellers caused me to voice my objection.

“That isn’t cool,” I burst, feeling an immense rush of adrenaline, a sense of relief, and not a single tinge of regret. “What you’re singing isn’t cool, it’s f*****g racist.” I added the swear word to sound more fearful.

She stopped and walked a few steps towards me. The younger and less drunk of the two men she was with sat up in his seat and stared, shocked that a member of the public had stood up to a casual song about ethnic cleansing.

Her defence was that Spurs fans would be singing derogatory things about Arsene Wenger on Sunday, so it was alright for her to sing this. A childish, ‘they did it first,’ style defence that doesn’t work at all.

“That doesn’t make it alright,” I said.

I had entered into an argument with three drunk, racist football supporters. I had never been in this situation before, probably because I had never confronted it.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to reason with them logically. I wasn’t about to give them a history lesson on the horrors of the Holocaust, or explain why it has nothing to do with a football match in north London 66 years later, so I looked for sympathy, and in the process of doing so, I lied.

“Arsenal have Jewish fans as well,” I said. “I’m Jewish and I’m an Arsenal fan.” The first part of this is true, the second part a lie, but I wanted to see their reaction. It was not the one I had hoped for.

“Jewish Arsenal fans sit next to me every week and they don’t give a s**t,” the man said.

“Well, some people do,” was my riposte as I recoiled back into my seat, hoping that they would at least cease the racist chanting now they knew they were offending someone.

They didn’t. “Gas the Yids,” was the next repeated cry from the woman, as if she wanted to make a statement to me that she wouldn’t have her right to promote the Holocaust undermined. She was determined, like most racist football supporters, to use her ‘support’ of a team as a gateway to promote her views.

I knew at this point that I was never going to win that particular battle, and that my involvement probably wouldn’t make a difference to the extraordinary narrow-mindedness of the trio.

Instead, when the woman and the older of the two men, possibly her dad, got off at Hatfield, there was a parting shot.

“You need to curl your hair and get your cap on before Sunday mate,” slurred the man, whose contribution up until this point had been to giggle away in the corner, half asleep, pretending he felt awkward. Nice.

I have little doubt that the incident won’t affect these specific individuals, and that next time they want to be racist in public they will. But I’m glad I said something. There might have been a Jewish person on the train who was also offended, and was grateful for my intervention. I can also recommend that anyone else does the same I did.

It was uplifting, and maybe another passenger told their mates the next day, and they will take a lesson on board. It’s not quite being carried off the train a hero as I’d envisaged, but it’s something.

There was no suggestion of chanting of this particular nature at the Tottenham v Arsenal match on Sunday, which is good, but this was only because the fans were too busy bellowing their views on other subjects that should never be echoed around a football stadium.

It’s inappropriate to make any comparison between the severity of the chants, or those allegedly sung by Leeds and Manchester United fans at the Carling Cup game last week. Yet internet messageboards are full of the same argument the woman on the train presented to me.

“We were only doing it in response to them.” Pathetic.

I hope Arsenal and Tottenham are both, at least, fined heavily by the FA for the chanting of their fans on Sunday, and that the individual supporters are banned for life. It won’t stop everyone indefinitely, but it might make some think again when they consider following the ringleaders to rock bottom.

And if you’re reading this article and don’t have a brick for a brain, I hope you think twice as well.