iPhone UITableView PlainStyle with custom background image - done "entirely" in code

You need to set up your controller as a UIViewController, not a UITableViewController. Then add the tableview programmatically above a background imageView.

@interface SomeController : UIViewController <UITableViewDataSource, UITableViewDelegate> {
  ...
  UITableView *tableView;
  ...
}
@property (nonatomic, retain) UITableView *tableView;
@end



@implementation SomeController

@synthesize tableView;

...

- (void)loadView {
    [super loadView];
    UIImageView *v = [[[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds] autorelease];
    [v setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"table_background.png"]];
    [self.view addSubview:v];


    self.tableView = [[[UITableView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds] autorelease];
    [self.tableView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];
    [self.view addSubview:self.tableView];
}
...
@end

All of this jumping through hoops is unnecessary if you're targeting > iOS 3.2, where you can use the new backgroundView property to set a UIImageView directly, e.g.:

// In your UITableViewController subclass
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    UIImageView *view = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"background.png"]];
    self.tableView.backgroundView = view;
}  

Ok, now it is running:) My tableView was not populated with my cells, so breakPointing through the thing I found out that even though I had implemented the TableViewDataSource and TableViewDelegate, this was only in the main view, I needed to set the delegate and datasource of the tableview to = self. For others seeking an answer to this here is the method as it ended up with Coneybeares help:

- (void)loadView {
[super loadView];

UIImageView *imageView = [[[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds] autorelease];
[imageView setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"carbon_background.png"]];
[self.view addSubview:imageView];

[self.tableView = [[UITableView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds] autorelease];
[self.tableView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];
[self.view addSubview:self.tableView];

self.tableView.delegate = self;
self.tableView.dataSource = self;

}