The Football Journalist is a blog site aimed at people who want to become professional sports and football journalists. It features listings of sports journalism courses and jobs within the football industry.

I applied a few basic customisations to the theme, changing the background image and adding in the adsense blocks and job listings widgets. I also used a few of my favourite plugins to apply SEO to the site.

As the site is linked with FootballFanCast (one of the leading football blog and podcasting sites in the UK) I would highly recommend it for anyone who is working towards a carreer in football journalism.

Check it out: www.thefootballjournalist.com

The WP Background Tile Plugin for WordPress applies a tiled background image to your blog.  It is as simple as this:

• Create a background image
• Upload it
• Apply it as the background via the WP Background Tile options page

Applying a repeat pattern to the background of a webpage is easily done using css:

body {background-image: url(example.jpg);}

However, if you're not into writing code, or don't know where to insert the css into your wordpress theme, then you will find this plugin much easier. It can also be an easy way of testing out lots of background images before deciding on one you are happy with.

INSTALLATION:

1. Download the plugin from the link at the bottom of this page
2. Upload the wp-background-tile folder to your wp-content/plugins folder.
3. Activate the plugin from the Plugins page in WordPress.

USAGE:

1. Upload your background image via 'Media => Add New' in Wordpress (or via FTP)
2. Go to 'Settings => WP Background Tile' in WordPress
3. Paste or type in the URL of your background image (explained in more detail below)
4. Press 'Submit'

CREATING A BACKGROUND TILE:

A background tile is an image which is repeated in both directions over the background of a webpage. Look closely at the background of my site and you will notice the green background is not a matte colour, but a subtle texture. Right click on the background of my site and choose 'View Background Image' (Firefox) or 'Save Background As' (IE) and have a look at the image. You will notice that it is small (16 x 16 pixels), as you don't need much of the pattern to make it tile. Stripes and other geometric patterns can work well for a subtle effect.

Tip: Check out the free online Stripe Generator tool, it's a really easy way to create striped background tiles.

Background tiles can also be used for larger images such as a logo repeat. An example of this is www.mrdupes.com. To achieve this type of result using photoshop the 'offset' filter can be very useful.

GETTING THE URL OF A FILE YOU HAVE UPLOADED WITH WORDPRESS:

1. Go to 'Posts => Add New'
2. Click on the 'Add Media' button (a little star type icon next to 'Upload/Insert')
3. Click on the 'Media Library' tab
4. Click on the word 'Show' next to the file you want the url for
5. Under 'Link URL' click on the button 'File URL'
6. The file url should now be in the 'Link URL' text box so you can copy it.

DOWNLOAD PLUGIN: