History would be made again by Grilled Birds, as they set another local milestone, on top of being the first club to successfully defend the Singapore Cup - being the first to collect all three Challenger Cups, in addition to the big one. They nearly missed out against Division Three dark horses Puh erh in the finals too, but would come from behind twice to win it, and fittingly through the symbol of their newest generation - Chan Ze Han. This further extended their official cup final record to seven wins from seven appearances, surely something that any club can be proud of.

The Birds were a real force in II.2 too, and were in the hunt for the league title right until the last day. Mia San Toa Payoh would deservedly claim the trophy - and promote to the S-League - on the back of very consistent performances, but the fact that the Birds had tamed the champions 5-1 at home, boded very well for their future. Joker 9 descended in Mia San's place to likely become Grilled Birds' main obstacle, while former world champions Be Champions FC slipped from II.2 in their swansong.

It was less celebratory for the Farmer Bunnies, whom not a few pundits had tipped for promotion - and for very understandable reason, what with the Buns having more or less supplied the national team's backline for some years now. Longtime head coach Sikong Darong worked feverishly to assemble the final pieces, shipping out underperforming forward Sim Leng Cheng, for former -= Manchester United =- star Nurlan Ablaev; the clock had run out for Sikong, sadly, and he would have to retire at season's end, his goal unaccomplished, for health reasons. By then, however, he had also recruited former internationals in Mushtag Al-Nameeri and Namdar Zarar, leaving successor Dalibor Kostadinović a squad that was up there with any in the land.

It remains to be seen if Kostadinović can fix up the persistent weakness ailing the team - a lack of goals - which saw them finish some distance behind not only Ropelearner FC, but also JUtd, in II.3. This problem also surfaced them whenever they came up against top-drawer opposition in the cups, with Arrogancae and littlehorse capitalizing on their staticness in attack. The new man has recognized the problem, at least, and is in the process of retrofitting the Buns' on-pitch strategies.

Sikong's spending was notably helped by an unexpected windfall, with youth player Umakant Chakraborty fetching over five million dollars. While perhaps not quite up to the near ten million that Ho Dong Ze had garnered for the Birds the season before, it remained a reminder that a good U-20 system could be very beneficial to a club's finances.

As it happened, the Busy Bees youth outfit was perhaps the only bright spot of a forgettable campaign for Grilled International, with the Bees sitting nicely at second out of sixteen participants in the Akkoç Paf Ligi, after 21 rounds. This contrasted heavily with the senior team finishing in the bottom half of the table, and having to fight against relegation - a complete downer after having won the league the season before.

G.I. gaffer Tajit bin Mohd, so recently the toast of the town, would be sacrificed mid-season after a run of bad results. New head coach Roar Olaisen brought a fresh mentality and some wins, but didn't manage to turn the club's overall trajectory around, as they failed to prevail in just about all of their major tests. Olaisen's first purchase of Swiss defender Didi Reidenbach paid immediate dividends in terms of his free-kick prowess, and Wang Hanxuan remained a cut above the rest, but it was otherwise a story of underperformance all through the squad.