There's no need to do all that if you just want that grouped tableview image to appear, you can do it with one line:
Code:
[[self tableView] setBackgroundColor:[UIColor groupTableViewBackgroundColor]];
But the question is, do you actually want to. It won't look nice having a Plain tableview with that background. If you create the table with the style set to Grouped, then that image is applied by default.