King Willem-Alexander wins the racerunner race at Only Friends, 12 February 2025

Eight boys and two footballs

Every good story about Only Friends starts with Myron. He was born with bilateral brain damage, and as a boy he played football at regular clubs in Amsterdam, where he was stared at and sometimes bullied. One day he came home crying and said he wanted to stop. His father, Dennis Gebbink, did what fathers do: he refused to accept that. In 2000 he gathered eight boys and two footballs in a corner of a pitch at AFC and started a club where nobody would be looked at strangely.

Twenty-five years later that corner of a pitch has become the Friendship Sports Centre, a purpose-built sports complex on the edge of Amsterdam-Noord, home to roughly 850 members and almost thirty sports. Swimming, boxing, tennis, dance, football, racerunning. Children, teenagers and young adults with a physical or intellectual disability or a chronic illness train here every week, coached by people who know them by name. Dennis still describes the philosophy in one line: he turned sorrow into strength, and strength into love.

The King with players and coaches of Only Friends on the pitch

Why we have been here for over a decade

Endless Minds has supported Only Friends for more than ten years. One of our founders has been a volunteer at the club for many years, which is how the relationship started: not as a sponsorship, but as Saturday mornings on the sidelines. Over time we became the club’s event partner. When the Friendship Sports Centre hosts its biggest days, from sports days for a thousand children to visits by brands like Toyota and Nike, we take care of the production behind the scenes so the club can stay focused on its members.

In early 2025 the visit of His Majesty the King to the Friendship Sports Centre was announced. Together with our partner Only Friends, we coordinated the day: not a ribbon-cutting or a speech from a stage, but an afternoon of training with the King in the middle of it.

Mayor Femke Halsema with a member of Only Friends during the royal visit

An ordinary afternoon, carefully built

A royal visit is a strange kind of event. The protocol is strict, the security is real, and yet the whole point is that it should feel natural. Our role, behind the scenes and together with the team at Only Friends, was to make 12 February run flawlessly while looking like nobody had planned anything at all: the programme, the route through the building, the places where the press could stand and the places where the children could simply be children.

Mayor Femke Halsema was there too. Dennis told the King and the Mayor how his life changed thirty-two years earlier with the birth of his son, and the King was visibly moved. Then he went to work. He watched swimming, tennis and dance lessons. He put on gloves for a boxing session. And in the racerunning hall, on a three-wheeled running bike built for athletes who cannot run unaided, he lined up against the members for a race.

A high five for the King at the Friendship Sports Centre

“Er zit geen rem op”

He won. Nobody at Only Friends seemed to mind. Flying towards the end of the track and the small crowd waiting there, the King shouted that there was no brake on the thing, and the hall laughed with him. It was the moment the visit stopped being a visit. For a few minutes the most protected man in the country was just another athlete at the club, which is exactly the point Dennis has been making since 2000: these children do not need pity. They need a place to play.

Afterwards the King spoke with staff and volunteers about the programmes, and with members about their experiences. When he said he could not imagine anyone leaving this place without feeling something, he was describing what every parent at the club already knows.

The King waves to the press outside the Friendship Sports Centre

What a day like this teaches about events

We often get asked what a corporate event concierge actually does. The honest answer is: the same thing we did on 12 February. We take every detail off the client’s hands so that the only thing left in the room is the experience. White-label, invisible, precise. The club got its day. The King got his race. And we got to stand in the back of the hall and watch, which is where we like to be.

If your company wants to support Only Friends, or wants to experience the Friendship Sports Centre with your own team, we would love to make the introduction. It remains one of the most special places we know in Amsterdam.