The Internet is replete with photographs of reggae king Bob Marley. Any search is almost certain to produce images of him wearing a T-shirt bearing the letters S H C.

Those initials formed the logo of Spartan Health Club (SHC), the Kingston fitness centre operated by Mickey Haughton-James. Spartan has, over the years, been the training ground for Jamaica’s premier athletes and beauty queens, producing two Miss World winners: Cindy Breakspeare in 1976 and Lisa Hanna in 1993.

It was Breakspeare’s connection to Marley that spurred those now-famous photographs of him wearing the Spartan Health Club T-shirt. They were in a relationship which resulted in the birth of their son, Grammy-winning star Damian “Junior Gong” Marley, in 1978.

Haughton-James confirmed that it was Breakspeare who shared the promotional T-shirt with Marley.

“The Bob Marley connection with SHC is through Cindy, who was my sole employee when I started SHC. I think of her as a co-founder of SHC. Although many of the reggae stars of the time including Jacob Miller, Third World, Bob Andy, and others, were ardent members of Spartan at the time, I think they were in their comfort zone because of Cindy’s connection with Bob; Bob himself worked out at SHC three times at most. His workouts seemed to have been confined to the football field. Bob is seen in so many pics in the SHC shirt given to him by Cindy,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

The famous SHC T-shirt is now sold as a tribute to Marley.

“A US company (called) Worn Free approached Spartan to sell the SHC (T-shirt) in dedicated Bob Marley areas in department stores in the USA. SHC entered into a contract with them after ascertaining from the Bob Marley Foundation that they were legitimate,” said Haughton-James.

For over three decades, Spartan Health Club was the Jamaican franchise holder for the Miss World beauty pageant. Marley, a football fanatic, would have turned 74 today. He died from cancer on May 11 1981 in Miami, Florida at age 36.