The other day I read a post on Boing Boing about constructing the Millwall Brick, which is the first I had heard of it. The Millwall (or Chelsea) Brick is an improvised weapon constructed out of rolled and folded newspaper.

The history behind the Milwall Brick is that football (soccer) hooligans, frisked at the gates, were limited in the types of weapons they could smuggle into the matches. The innocuous newspaper allowed them a quickly accessible weapon at their disposal should the fistic festivities kick off.

Instructions for making one can be found here, but the photo sequence they show pretty much covers it:

Now, I’m all for improvised weapons, but this looks almost like more trouble than it’s worth. It seems to me a rolled-up magazine used as a thrusting weapon would be far more useful, not to mention quicker to implement.

Then again, the South Londoners know what they’re about when it comes to football violence, so I guess I need to make one and do a couple test whacks with it to really understand it. At first glance, it just looks too short to do anything worthwhile. Maybe that’s part of the fun: you can have a less-lethal weapon that will save your fists in a punch up and not land you in the chokey for attempted murder.

“You say the defendant then viciously attacked you with a newspaper? The defense rests, your honor.”