The club's greatest success has been to earn promotion to the tier three Regionalliga Nord in 1996, where it played for three seasons.

The club has also made two appearances in the first round of the DFB-Pokal, the German Cup.

A period of three decades followed in which Ricklinge did not play at the highest level of Lower Saxony football.

[2][3] Sportfreunde played at Regionalliga level for three seasons, with an eleventh place in 1996–97 as its best result.

[2][4] Sportfreunde Ricklingen has since fallen as far as the tier eight Kreisliga Hannover but success in the Kreisliga promotion round in 2014 took Sportfreunde back to the Bezirksliga where it lasted for two seasons before dropping back down again.