THE city streets have long since shaken off their last shoppers. By 10pm on Saturday night, the drinkers and clubbers are charging in.

Voices lose their clarity, becoming blurred and slurred. Everything is charged, unpredictable. Therein lies the fascination – and the fear.

Upstairs, in a little living room above a bar on St James's Street, four friends are getting ready to go out. They're loading up rucksacks full of first aid kits, lollipops, flip-flops, hair clips and space blankets.

You can tell this is no ordinary night on the tiles. These are Nottingham's street pastors – and every single item in their collection has its place in combating the after-effects of a tidal-wave of Stella or sambuca.

The flip-flops, for instance, are offered to women who have removed their stilettos and are trying to walk, barefoot, through shards of glass on the street.

And the lollies? "It's a sugar boost," explains Jo Cox-Brown, from Ruddington, who set up the street pastors. "It helps break down barriers. And you can't have a fight if you're sucking on a lollipop!"

Jo, 32, is a soothing, sweet-voiced presence on the city streets. As manager of the Malt Cross, the city's church-owned pub, she is capable but calming. She moved to Nottingham from London six years ago.

Jo, like the other 30 street pastor volunteers, is a Christian. But the team isn't about preaching at people, it's about calming the city, helping the drink-distressed, and getting them home safely.

It's going to be a busy night tonight, she tells her team. Jaded Forest fans are drowning their sorrows. Stag and hen dos are on. There's a gig at Rock City.

Tonight there are nine pastors on the rota, working until 3am.

They operate in teams of three, every Saturday, each wearing a blue jacket emblazoned with the words "street pastor".

"'Ave a good night and praise the Lord!" roars a passer-by as they cross Slab Square.

Although they've only been operating for seven weeks, they're already a fixture. People want to stroke them, hug them. "They tell us, 'You helped my mate last week'," grins Jo.

So far, the team has dealt with around 200 different incidents. The word "incident" can mean anything from defusing violent arguments, to helping victims of sexual assault to treating people who have collapsed. They have calmed the distraught, the suicidal, even.

They're prepared for all this by 12 training sessions with the police, council, ambulance teams and drugs charities, who help fund the service.

My team are Abby Murray, George Stannard and Dan Walker – all friends from Vineyard Church. They share a love of the city's nightlife. Each approaches their pastoring differently. Dan goes bounding off, collecting glass bottles so they can't be used as weapons, or chatting to passers-by.

Abby is pretty and willowy – which goes down well with the stag dos. "You're quite attractive, aren't you?" observes one charmer.

George, meanwhile, stands back, surveying the crowds. The mood can change quickly when people are the worse for wear.

The team is armed with a walkie talkie, connecting them to ambulance, police and CCTV services. Jo takes charge.

"Tango Victor, this is Street Pastor Five." Tango Victor is the CCTV operator.

A voice crackles through. "There's a bit of a fracas outside Space NK."

Jo makes haste towards Pelham Street, followed by her team. We can see two shadowy figures dragged apart, arms flailing.

"Ooh," shout some girls in Dolly Parton stetsons. "They've fallen out!"

Jo is brisk, to the point. She tells them they're on CCTV.

"'Ee's me mate!" insists one of the fighters, anxious for it not to be taken seriously. "Look." He shakes free of one of the restrainers and staggers towards his opponent. They go nose-to-nose, then hug.

"Would you like a lollipop?" asks Jo. It does the trick. Like mollified children, they stagger off into the night.

"It's difficult to know in that situation whether to walk into it or not," Jo comments. "It's a bit of a judgement call."

Down the road, another stag do is belting out classics with a busker. "And after all!" they bay, tunelessly. "You're my wonder-wa-ahl."

They disperse when a police van arrives – not before they've accepted lollies and bottles of water from the team.

"They're in the Navy," explains Jo. "They're quite sober, they're just loud."

When they're not being alerted to potential trouble-spots, the pastors just wander, helping people as they go. They have to think quickly.

"Street pastor! Where's Oceana?" We're approached by another stag do, all wearing tights – except for one who's dressed as Chewbacca. "I didn't have any tights," he explains.

"Where are you guys from?"

"Derby. Ssh! Don't go shouting that around here, mind!"

They wander off in the general direction the pastors have pointed.

In the doorway to the Euro car park sits a girl in a bridal veil with no shoes. She accepts Dan's offer of flip-flops.

"They don't give you flip-flops where I'm from," she marvels. "They just scrape you off the pavement."

"These are going in my memory box!" cries her friend.

A man who is barely able to speak asks for the Hilton hotel. Where's the Hilton? The team consult, before settling on the Victoria Centre. They support him all the way there, locate his room key in his pocket, and settle him back with his mates.

At 12.30 they return to base, to restock and pray. Then it's out on the streets again.

By a bus stop, they spot a teenage girl pressing fruitlessly at a phone.

At first she insists she doesn't want help. So Jo just stands and chats to her. After a few minutes, she opens up. She only has £4, her phone has no credit, she's lost all her friends and she needs to get back to Ravenshead.

"I don't want to ring my mum and dad," she says. "They'll only worry."

The team try to track down her bus but end up putting her in a taxi.

They pass EQ nightclub and clip back a staggering girl's hair so she can vomit on the pavement.

"I want to go home," she moans.

The team was set up with the support of the city council, the Home Office, the police and local businesses. The benefits are clear – they help prevent early-hours services being overrun.

Jo's eventual aim is to build, what she calls, a 24-hour safe space – a city centre location with trained medical support. She believes it will cost around £100,000 to set up. Fundraising is ongoing.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to help people, she admits. Sometimes they don't want help. And sometimes, the pastors have to treat the assailants as well as the victim. A few weeks ago, they were called to assist a medical crew who were treating a man who had been thrown through a window. Jo and her team had to treat the pair who had thrown him and cut themselves in the process.

"It's quite challenging when you're treating somebody who's done something not great," Jo observes. "But we're called to forgive, not judge people."

It's 3.30am. A roadsweeper shudders through the streets. Most people are gone now and the pastors can go home and sleep in the knowledge that, across Nottinghamshire, people have also made it safely home who might otherwise not have done.