Last weekend was a landmark one for the EFL. As well as back-to-back Papa John's Trophy Finals, the league marked a year since unrestricted access to football stadiums. And Trevor Birch, EFL Chief Executive, reflected on that milestone.

Ahead of the Trophy Finals, which saw Salford City win the postponed 2020 competition before Sunderland won the 2021 version, Birch wrote a message on the EFL website. The majority looked forward to the EFL's big weekend but he also looked ahead to the coming months. He said football needed to play its part to enable next season to start without restrictions on fans in stadiums.

He said: "Looking forward, after 12 months of empty stadiums, fans can be assured that the EFL will be doing all it can in the coming weeks and months to get our turnstiles turning once again. With the Government’s roadmap now set out, it is vitally important that football and the nation does it all it can to halt the spread of the virus, get vaccinated and enable restrictions to be lifted for the start of next season. To this end, throughout the year all EFL clubs have stepped up without hesitation to serve their community and have provided stadia for mass testing and vaccinations, made over 500,000 phone calls to isolated fans and delivered 1million food parcels (and counting) to people in the community."

Read the full message here.