Beside the tram tracks that run all the way down to Blackpool and the Pleasure Beach, just along from the hulking iron anchor embedded in the pavement at the start of Fisherman’s Walk, they were doing a brisk trade at The Eating Plaice as kick-off to one of the greatest occasions in this town’s history edged closer.

One of the ladies behind the counter upbraided an Arsenal fan taking his plate of fish and chips through to the restaurant.

‘You’ve done yourself there, love,’ she said. ‘If you’d ordered in there, you could have had fish and chips, mushy peas, a brew and bread and butter for £10.95.’

It was the start of a bad night for Arsenal and a beautiful evening for the wider glory of English football at one of its most remote outposts.

Arsenal had played Bayern Munich in their previous away game but not even the Allianz Arena could have prepared them for their return to a stadium called Highbury and a Carabao Cup fourth-round tie against a League Two side 85 places below them in the pyramid.

A drone, hovering ahead, stopped play early on. A gale blew off Morecambe Bay. Arsenal wonderkid Max Dowman was sent off late in the second half. The tie went to a penalty shoot-out and Fleetwood did not miss a single one.

Bruno Guimaraes, a Brazilian World Cup star, blinked first and missed. Conor Haughey, a teenage centre back from Northern Ireland, took Fleetwood’s final kick and buried it high past Illan Meslier in the Arsenal goal, to send his team into the quarter-finals of the competition and seal the biggest upset in the history of the League Cup.

The loud speaker system played Depeche Mode singing ‘I just can’t get enough,’ over and over again as the Cod Army, Fleetwood’s loyal fans, invaded the pitch. Manager Matt Lawlor, a local man, whose young son was in the crowd, could not stop his tears flowing. His team is 18th in League Two, two points off the relegation zone, and they had just beaten the champions.

‘Football’s getting a little bit more clinical and removed,’ said Lawlor in the post-match mayhem. ‘And that to me tonight, there was that feeling we all get as football fans. That was what you kind of live for, isn’t it?

‘To be giving that to football fans, especially Fleetwood fans, is unbelievably special. Football’s a funny old game, isn’t it?’

There is a frontier feel about this town, a bit like Barrow-in-Furness on the other side of Morecambe Bay. Sea salt in the veins and a harbour once home to a flotilla of trawlers. The wind blows through it so hard it whisks away anything that is not nailed down. The Vintage Emporium and Odditorium advertises its wares near the seafront.

It feels like giant-killing country here. It is giant-killing country here. Especially last night, when a gale blew through the ground, bending the corner flags and threatening to sweep laptops off the press tables and dislodge red-and-blue hats from the heads of the Cod Army regulars who filed into the stands and leaned against the crush barriers on the terraces behind the goals.

This was Highbury, but not as Arsenal know it. There is nothing Art Deco about any of the stands at Fleetwood Town’s delightful ground. The capacity is 5,327. The trendy restaurants of Upper Street are not a short walk away down Holloway Road. This is a different kind of Highbury. A single-storey sports and social club sits behind the touchline opposite the main stand. A banner proclaiming ‘Up the Cods’ hung behind one of the goals.

It is more than 20 years since Arsenal — who brought 1,100 fans north with them — played the final game at their Highbury and Arteta respected the name and the competition by picking a strong side.

This was a million miles from Monday’s Ballon d’Or ceremony at the London Palladium, where Arteta had lost out to Luis de la Fuente in the Manager of the Year category, to this football outpost by the sea but the Arsenal boss gave every signal he and his team were approaching the task with relish. In his line-up here were Viktor Gyokeres, Kai Havertz and Myles Lewis-Skelly. They are not strangers to tricky trips like this. They negotiated a visit to Mansfield Town’s Field Mill ground in the FA Cup last year with aplomb.

Teenagers Dowman and Marli Salmon started that game just as they started this one. Arteta also handed a debut to Ceadach O’Neill, 18.

Less than two minutes in, play was halted by the sight of a drone of unknown provenance hovering over the pitch. It is not the first time it has happened at a game, but it seemed to unnerve Arsenal. The teams came to the sidelines before play was resumed after seven minutes. The drone operator was apprehended by police in a nearby park. Stick the whole episode in the Odditorium.

Midway through the half, there was some football drama, too. Aaron Loupalo-Bi ran on to a through ball and held off Salmon before turning him and rifling the ball through the legs of Meslier.

Never has Highbury celebrated a goal against Arsenal with such unbridled joy. The theme to Captain Pugwash, the Fleetwood goal music, carried across the ground on the breeze.

But five minutes after the interval, with Martin Odegaard introduced to the fray, Arsenal were level. O’Neill swung a fine cross into the box and after a bit of pinball, Gyokeres forced it over the line. Five minutes later, Jay Lynch pulled off a last-ditch save to deny Havertz from close range.

Odegaard changed the game. Arsenal dominated midfield now and were turning the screw. Havertz prodded into the side-netting and Lewis-Skelly skied an effort over from the edge of the six-yard box. ‘Champions of England, you’re having a laugh,’ the Cod Army sang.

Five minutes from the end, Dowman reacted to a challenge by Harrison Neal and kicked him while on the floor. He was shown a straight red card. Dowman is still only 16. As he trudged off the pitch, Arteta muttered something in his ear. The kid was doing his GCSEs this summer. This will be a valuable part of his football education.

Lynch saved from Ben White in the dying seconds and the tie went to penalties. Arsenal blinked first. Guimaraes hit their fourth penalty to the keeper’s left and Lynch dived to push it out. Haughey stepped up to take Fleetwood’s fifth and smashed it into the roof of the net.

Haughey is 19 but when he spoke after the match, he was the personification of the wonder that had overtaken this town. ‘When I saw Guimaraes miss,’ he said, ‘I was buzzing. I thought “hit it and then run like mad”. If I seem confident, well I’m a Belfast lad and if you’re not confident in Belfast, you get eaten up.’

Arteta was keen to pay tribute to Fleetwood. ‘We didn’t want to go through this,’ he said, ‘but it is part of the history of football here.’ By then, Highbury was echoing to the sound of lawnmowers on the pitch. The gale still blew.