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As a fan, Martin Burtt describes himself as “fairly hard-core.”

Every year since 2014, he’s bought four Ottawa Fury FC season tickets. He’s sat in the stands next to many of the same fans through three campaigns for the Fury in the North American Soccer League and two more in the United Soccer League, and he’ll probably see them again at USL contests in 2019.

Together, Burtt and his “neighbours” constitute an upbeat constituency of Fury FC fans, a solid core of about 5,000 who steadfastly attend regular-season home matches.

They are the good news.

The bad news for the team and its partners is that the core of 5,000 has remained stubbornly consistent. It surged to about 5,400 in 2015, sparked by Fury FC’s stirring run to the top of NASL fall-season standings and the Soccer Bowl final,then again to 5,500 a year later, but it declined roughly 10 per cent to 4,853 last year.

“It’s that old Ottawa,” Burtt says.