EU referendum: Politicians battle over Brexit at the Greenhous Meadow

But on the floor above in the stadium's Roland Wycherley Stand, 150 business leaders had assembled to hear four of the region's political heavyweights were making their case on how to vote in the June 23 poll.

Making the case for Britain's continued membership of the EU were local Euro MPs Anthea McIntyre (Con) and Neena Gill (Lab), while arguing for Brexit were Ukip's Jill Seymour and Tory MP for Shrewsbury Daniel Kawczynski.

The event had been organised by Shropshire Chamber of Commerce, and an online poll held the night before showed there is still plenty to play for – 40 per cent of those who voted believed Britain should remain in the EU, 36 per cent thought it was time to leave. A considerable 24 per cent were still to make up their mind.

It was probably a coincidence that the debate on Britain's sovereignty was held in the Sovereign Suite. But did the purple walls and seats – colours normally associated with the UK Independence Party – give a hint to which way the debate might go?

At the start of her speech, the diminutive Mrs McIntyre playfully jumped up and down, jocularly remarking that people at the back of the room would not be able to see her.

No problem for her pro-Brexit party fellow Conservative Mr Kawczynski, whose 6ft 8in frame towered over the audience, forcing him to stoop to see the lectern.

Perhaps getting the measure of the business-focused audience, Mrs McIntyre rattled off a string of statistics about how EU membership benefited British business.

"We have 700,000 job vacancies, more people in work than ever before," she said. "The lowest unemployment we have had for years. Four million British jobs are linked to our membership of the EU. We have 500 million consumers in the single market."

She had certainly researched her numbers. Pre-empting the Brexiteers' turn to speak, she insisted that Britain's membership of the EU did not cost £350 million a week.

By contrast, Miss Gill appealed to the heart, quoting a speech that Winston Churchill had made to a 1948 Conservative Party meeting in Llandudno, where the former wartime leader referred to Britain being "at the heart of three majestic circles – the Empire and Commonwealth, the English speaking world and a United Europe".

"He said, 'We are the only country which has a great part in every one of them. We stand, in fact, at the very point of junction, and here in this island at the centre of the seaways and perhaps of the airways also, we have the opportunity of joining them all together'," she quoted.

"We are still at the forefront of decision making. Anthea has made a strong economic case, but the referendum is not just about the economy," she said.

"There is a patriotic case for staying in the EU, as well as an economic case."

Gauging who has the upper hand in these debates is never easy, and the chamber of commerce bods were a pretty non-partisan audience. But the protocol was broken when Mrs Seymour attacked the Government's decision to spend £9.3 million on a leaflet explaining why it supported Britain's continued membership of the EU, attracting collective murmurings of "hear hear" from various parts of the room.

Mrs Seymour was also the first speaker to use the now obligatory reference to "hard-working families," the phrase also quoted by Mr Kawczynski during his address.

In a rousing finale, Mrs Seymour said that if Britain withdrew from the European Union, it would still be a permanent member of the UN Security Council, would still be a member of the G20 group, and would still be America's closest ally.

"People in the Remain camp say that leaving the EU would be a leap into the dark," she said. "I say it would be a leap into the light."

There was a mixture of pathos and humour in Mr Kawczynski's speech, as he talked about being heckled by his constituents.

"I often get stopped in the street, but that is probably because I am over two metres tall," he said, using surprising Europhilic units of measurement.

"I am known in the Commons as Mr Shrewsbury, but I think that is because they don't know how to pronounce my last name," he joked.

"I remember when somebody came up to me once and said 'are you Mr Kawasaki?' Still, it was better when somebody said to me 'you're that Mr Ceausescu'.

"People sometimes get very angry at the way I vote, but that is beautiful," he said. "You are accountable in the way that MEPs are not."

He spoke movingly about his pride, as a Polish immigrant, being elected by the people of Shrewsbury to represent them, and criticised the Polish government for its unwillingness to offer Britain a better deal to remain in the UK.

"When you look at what this country has done for Poland, during the Second World War, during the dark days of Communism, helping Poland to get into Nato, and protecting the border with Germany during reunification, but when we wanted their support the Polish government wasn't interested."