Crawls, the son of Coventry City's Tommy Crawley, started and ended his footballing career with Coventry Sphinx. A prolific striker, he went on to play for Bedworth, Nuneaton,Kettering, VS Rugby in two spells,Telford before finishing his semi-professional career and playing local football both on a Saturday and Sunday.
Ian, who ran the family Newsagents in Willenhall and lived in Allesley Park, got VS Rugby to the FA Vase Final in 1983 and scored the only goal of the game and did the same for Telford United in the FA Trophy in 1989.
His last game for Coventry Sphinx brought a twelve mnute first hat-trick away to Meir KA in the late 1990's.
In November 2006, the striker, who was, in his younger days, one of the top table tennis players in Coventry, was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease after having an successful operation for Cancer.
Various fundraising events were held to make Ian's as comfortable as possible and he battled until the end but passed away on Monday.
Covsupport News Service wish to send its condolences to Ian's mum and dad, his wife Anita and Sophie and Jamie.
"I'm proud to have known Ian Crawley almost all of my life,said Covsupport's Kev Monks. "He was the man you wanted in your team. Crawls could lift a dressing room in seconds and on the pitch he was a defender's nightmare. He knew every trick in the book and would use it to good effect.
"No matter where he was on the pitch he always knew where the goal was. To say he was just a local footballing legend is an understatement, Crawls was more than that.
"Off the pitch,any time spent with Crawls was time well spent. He was a thorougly decent human being and it has been a pleasure to have known him."