WE had spotted them acting suspiciously in a doorway and heard an audible snort, so decided to cross the road and have a quiet chat."

Caught red-handed with a small plastic bag containing a white substance, the two boys looked sheepish and immediately starting getting mouthy.

Their friends from a nearby pub in St Nicholas Street decided to come and investigate and suddenly what had been a calm two against one situation turned into a mob of inquisitive drunks.

It was becoming harder for Inspector Andy Smith, my chaperone for the night, to control the crowd and keep an eye on his two drug-taking suspects, who I will call X and Y.

X suddenly made a run for it, darting across the road at lightning speed. It left Y, Insp Smith, myself and the mob.

At one point CS spray was threatened if the mob did not move away. They were moving closer and Y was starting to look shifty.

He made a run for it. We tried to stop him but he was too strong and ran into the road, straight into the path of an oncoming car, which was forced to slam on its brakes.

Just like you see in the films, Y paused, hands on the bonnet staring at the driver and then ran off, this time into the path of a lorry.

Insp Smith was in hot pursuit and so too was a police van, which arrived just as Y had been wrestled to the ground.

The mob by now was charged and excited, refusing to move away when police told them to and becoming argumentative and aggressive.

It had started as a calm look and see' venture but turned into a situation with one man on the run, another nearly run over and several fired-up punters.

This was just one example of the many incidents I witnessed in Worcester city centre as police went about their duties and people moved from pub to club to takeaway to taxi.

It must be said that the majority of people were in good spirits - flirtatious girls wanting attention from uniformed officers or men simply in search of a kebab. But there was trouble, and in all the situations bar one, alcohol or drugs were involved.

Patrolling the city centre with Insp Smith, I began to understand there is a lot more to policing than what you see on TV in programmes such as The Bill.

Picking up empty bottles became a regular practice as did warning people about cars - it seemed people were in more of a hurry to get a burger from McDonald's than to consider looking left and right.

I also began to understand the magnet police officers are for unprovoked abuse.

At one point during the night I spotted X some hours after the doorway incident and Insp Smith took him to one side to have a chat. During the calm discussion a random man walked purposefully up to us holding his middle finger up behind Insp Smith's head.

There was another incident in which we had to nanny a man who had clearly had one pint too many. Walking around a corner holding his mobile phone, the man, probably in his 20s, slipped and smashed his head on the pavement.

We rushed over to help, but he had no idea what happened and kept asking why his head hurts.

The only coherent words he managed to utter are: "I just came here to go on the p*** with my mates."

During the trip to Worcestershire Royal Hospital in a police car, the man, who managed to tell us his name was Rob, repeatedly asked what had happened, where he was and why his head hurt.

The two police officers remained jovial, although did tell me their nightly dose of sense of humour had now gone for the shift.

Insp Smith told me most of the trouble in Worcester at a weekend was alcohol-related.

"That could be anything from someone collapsed on the streets to problems at the taxi ranks," he said.

"I do think there is a culture around drinking that probably will take some time to change. People feel they have to go out to get drunk."

His message to people is clear: "It is about safe and sensible drinking. I want people to come into Worcester and enjoy themselves but not to cause trouble."