Saturday at the cricket, a bright, sunny day, England versus Australia, you would think that everybody was having a great day out?

Certainly the home crowd who were enjoying watching Australia rack up a huge score. Also the Barmy Army, who were in full song, despite the events not going England's way on the field.

Instead, spare a thought for the men and women in blue, the security force in charge of policing the grass banks at the WACA.

They were not having the most fun they've ever had in their lives.

One incident perhaps summed up their day.

As the ground was clearing after the close of play, a heavily drunk Aussie was blindly throwing plastic bottles in all directions.

A guard asked him calmly and politely to leave, and was greeted by more bottles being thrown and a torrent of verbal abuse.

The security had no choice but to escort him out more forcibly, which the inebriated man then decided to ask for the officer's badge number to put in a complaint.

It was unpleasant to watch, and you started to feel sorry a security force that had actually received a lot of criticism during the day from the crowd.

They weren't helped by some draconian laws inside the WACA, that didn't allow inflatables, flag poles, and the like.

Hadn't we left these stuffy rules back in England at Lord's?

So the security force were left to try and uphold these laws.

Did they really confiscate the flags being waved by some young children on the first day?

Did they really need to try and eject a man trying to conceal a beach ball that was being thrown around?

When they tried the latter, the crowd reacted by pelting the officers with plastic cups and bottles.

The security then had to abort their actions for safety reasons, thus being made to look silly.

Mob rule had won out, but to be fair, the fault lies with those who made the rules at the WACA, not those trying to enforce them.

Another problem came with the no alcohol rule on the grass bank. This left people trying to smuggle spirits in.

The result? Well one Aussie teenager was throwing up just after midday, and had another embarrassing accident as he had wet himself.

The offender was removed ejected from the ground, but was back inside an hour later. What rules were the security following?

A member of the Barmy Army was thrown out late in the day. After leading the singing, had the larger members of the security force really objected to being referred to as "the fat boys over there"?

Or had this supporter been punished for earlier stealing an Aussie flag and disposing of it, unacceptable behaviour in anybody's eyes?

The security force didn't help themselves by not communicating the reasons for their actions. They later explained they simply get the call the remove someone and they do this without question.

Another problem came in the stony faces of the security officers when dealing with the crowd. When "who ate all the pies..." was directed at one officer, a simple nod or smile of acknowledgement would have received a cheer.

In Adelaide, a senior officer had danced along with the Army's chant of "Old McDonald had a farm ... (and on that farm he had some pigs).

And in Brisbane, female officer Samantha Ellis had become a minor celebrity as a result of not much more than laughing along with the Army's banter.

Maybe this was the key. The police in Brisbane, who received huge praise from the travelling English fans, were a unit specialising in crowd control at big events. They understood the actions of the crowd and knew how to deal with them.

In contrast, here in Perth, it was a security force who looked more like night-club bouncers and many seemed to have little idea on how to police big crowds.

A tired and defensive looking officer tried to argue at the end of the day that it should be remembered all the good things they had done handling incidents in the crowd during the day.

But many on duty still have a lot to learn about how to handle crowds at a sporting event.

Still, few at the WACA on Saturday envied their task.

© Barmy Army