The time had come at last for Grilled Birds to ascend to the summit, which they achieved in the first season of Austrian head coach Eren Serpin's already-legendary tenure. The 39 year-old was no stranger to the squad, having understudied Hovaness Noubaryan for four seasons before this, but capturing the S-League and Singapore Cup on his first try remained an accomplishment surely beyond the fans' wildest dreams.

And why should it not be? The cup was one thing, but their last big one had been over twenty seasons ago, and the Birds have earned a not-entirely unwarranted reputation for choking in the league, with three runners-up finishes in the top flight. True, Serpin had recruited well with Salah Kamel and Kalle ter Berg giving the team that little extra defensive assurance they never quite had, but with the likes of Arrogancae, Bot Team FC and cup three-peater Sarcastic Fringeheads in contention, surely this could not be enough?

Farmer Bunnies' relegation following a more-than-decent first season in the S-League didn't bode well either, and the Birds would stumble in week three at home against Haha - though they had by then pulled off a magnificent away victory against Bot Team FC... if nothing compared to what was to come. As it was, most pundits agreed that the real test of the Birds' title credentials would be how they fared away to Fringeheads, and they passed that week five test with flying colours, coming back from a goal down to win 3-1 on the back of a Moey Xin Seng stormer.

Grilled would not relinquish their lead ever after, and another huge 6-0 win versus FC Barca Singapore, then 4-0 over The EV in the cup, would lead into one of the toughest four-game sequences in the Singapore game: a league doubleheader against Arrogancae, a semi-final to stop Fringeheads getting four in a row in between, and assuming all went well, a cup final against one of Bot Team FC or Arrogancae.

Well, the Birds would have to work for a narrow 3-2 victory at Avengers Apocalypse, which however paled in comparison to the Woodside Park semis, where over 120,000 paying spectators observed the old cup specialists put an end to the new. There was no time to relax - unlike for the Bots, who had a league bye into the finals - but Grilled would do the required with a comprehensive 5-1 drubbing of Arrogancae at The Cooking Pot.

The 61st Singapore Cup final would then lay claim to being the most astounding of them all, which one could hardly have guessed at when Bot Team FC's Oleg Konaev scored the opener in the 14th minute. The chase was on, as Salah Kamel equalized four minutes later, and although the Bots took the lead four more times - the last some ten minutes into extra time through Anthony Jarvis - they simply couldn't put Grilled away. Kalki Parvathaneni equalized a fifth time in the 106th minute, and after Chu Xin Lee swept a sixth home, it was instead the Bots who were mentally shattered.

Now, that epic alone would have been worthy of being the showpiece of this generation of Grilled players, but Grilled were chasing more than history now. Fringeheads wouldn't make it easy, and dealt the Birds their first - and only - competitive defeat of the season, to draw level on points. The Birds still largely held their fate in their own hands, thanks to a scoring habit, and nervous wins against Haha and Bot Team FC would bring them to a final-day showdown at The EV. In the end, the Birds won 5-2, while Fringeheads fell 3-4 at the Bots, and Grilled Birds were crowned S-League champions.

There was no letting up for Serpin here, and he would duly sign Chinese former youth international Wu Jinglong from Fringeheads, in preparation for their title defences. Dutch defensive midfielder Mateja Jeftić had also joined the team in mid-season, and given the relative youth of Grilled's squad, there appears no reason why they should not be in contention for either trophy.

Alas, where the Birds covered themselves in ultimate glory, it was a gloomy story for Farmer Bunnies and Grilled International, both of whom were shockingly relegated coming off pretty promising seasons. The aging Buns seemed... tired, for want of a better word, and never quite seemed the team that they had been in the S-League. Multiple injuries to key stars such as Tham Leng Teck, Vivian Grubenmann and Nurlan Ablaev didn't help matters, and they would be found out by Batok Earthquakes in their relegation fixture.

It wasn't as if the supporters hadn't seen something like this coming, though, and they could at least take some heart in Dalibor Kostadinović's gradual bedding-in of new blood. There could be few complaints about pedigree either, as both Kyrgyzstan's Aitykul Zaripbekov and Indonesia's Djoko Tambusai would arrive with international U-20 experience.

The crash might have been even harder to take for Grilled International, who went from being top of IV.59, to getting directly demoted with a second-to-last place finish. Norwegian gaffer Roar Olaisen, so popular in his initial seasons, could never quite identify a root cause, and it comes as no surprise that fellows such as Fausto Perono are again threatening a move. The only consolation might be that International look surely far too good for Division Five - or are they?