The club was founded in 1929, which is where the '29 comes from. Its first big breakthrough came in 1983, winning the Hoofdklasse Sunday B — at the time the highest level of amateur football in the country. Two more Hoofdklasse titles followed in 2006 and 2008, the latter sealed in a winner-takes-all derby against local rivals De Treffers. A draw would have given Achilles the title; they won 3–2 instead. In 2010–11 the new Topklasse arrived as a tier above the Hoofdklasse, and the next season Achilles took it, beating Saturday champions SV Spakenburg over two legs (3–0, 0–2) to win the overall amateur national title for the first time. The aggregate was 5–0. The trophy came with an option to turn professional. They didn't take it. Not yet.

While the league grind went on, the club built a reputation in the KNVB Cup, the Dutch domestic cup that pairs amateurs and professionals from the earliest rounds. Across various campaigns Achilles knocked out FC Volendam, Heracles Almelo, RKC Waalwijk, Telstar and MVV Maastricht — all professional sides, all beaten by a village club from the southeast border. For supporters, those nights at Sportpark De Heikant became the kind of stories that get told and retold. The club also won the amateur KNVB Cup outright in 2010–11 and the Amateur Supercup in both 2011–12 and 2012–13.

In 2012–13 Achilles defended its Topklasse title — well, half of it; the overall national crown went to VV Katwijk that year. But Katwijk declined to turn professional. Achilles did the opposite. The club obtained a license, won a dispensation on certain professional-football requirements, and took its promotion right to the Eerste Divisie, the second tier of Dutch professional football. The first match was a draw against FC Emmen. For four seasons the club from Groesbeek competed alongside the FC Twentes-in-waiting and the perennial yo-yo clubs of the Dutch second division. It was the high point — and the moment from which everything fell.

In May 2017 Achilles was relegated from the Eerste Divisie to the new amateur Tweede Divisie. The next year, relegation from Tweede to Derde Divisie. The year after, Derde to Hoofdklasse. In 2019–20 the club was rock bottom of its Hoofdklasse group with one point from twenty matches, but the COVID-19 pandemic suspended the Dutch leagues and saved them from relegation that season — a reprieve that earned the chant Achilles handhaaft zich miraculeus, Achilles miraculously survives. The reprieve was temporary. They went down to Eerste Klasse in 2021–22 and to Tweede Klasse the following season. Second tier to seventh in six years. The club's stadium, De Heikant, sits in the same fields it always has. The women's team entered the professional Eredivisie Vrouwen in 2016–17. The men keep playing on Sundays, in front of supporters who remember beating Heracles.