[Lynne]

Someone was posting about something else and we talked about a plugin that would check:

 $background = "backgroud".$forumid.jpg;
if (!$background)
  $background = default.jpg;

So basically, you add to your images/whatever/folder/ a bunch of backgrounds with the forumid at the end - ie. background23.jpg for forumid 23, backround14.jpg for forumid 14, etc. If there is no background14 for forumid, then it uses default.jpg instead.

Then in the template, for the row, just add "style="background: url(/images/whatever/folder/$background);" to the row.

(That is probably totally messed up. I can't code just by writing, I am a trial and error person, but perhaps you understand what I'm saying.)