Hi all.
To cut a long story short, im extremely eager to create my own website.
It doesnt have to involve money, its just a personal website in which I want to just gain satisfaction from growing, its hopefully going to be Sports orientated, and feature soley my favorite football ( soccer ) club Arsenal FC.
Im, to put it simply, Clueless about creating a website, hosting, etc etc... I tried reading up about in for the past few hours, and basicaly its as difficult for me to understand, as it is trying to get a toddler to learn japanese...
Any and every bit of advice is welcome?
What my goals are:
To be the administrator of my website, to be able to create the backgrounds, pictures, images, to edit all the news from time to time, to have a forum, picture thread.. etc etc, and all the other basic stuff a website entales.
Cheers.
Andrew

Andrew,
You need to think of a domain name first of all. Once you've got that, see if you can buy it either through namecheap or godaddy or somewhere of your choice. Once you've bought the domain name, it's time to look for hosting. Yet again, GoDaddy does hosting and so do quite a few other places. Just google for webhosting or something. Once that's done, you'll have your server set up. A lot of times the hosting company will do the setup for you as far as name servers and all of that go on the server (if you go with something basic, meaning w/o Web Host Manager). After you have all of that set up, it's time to start making your site in dreamweaver(or your editor of choice) OR the you could use the ever-popular wordpress and download/upload templates to your server (through FTP). I would recommend going with Wordpress your first go-round as it is extremely easy to use and update and there are limitless widgets/gadgets/plugins to use for various things. I hope that helps! If you need more in-depth info, you can always reply to this thread as you go through each step! Let me know if I can help!

Andrew,
Since money wont be involved in the website, you don't need to worry about things such as SSL or a dedicated IP address. Let me start you off with what you will need.
What you will need to get your website on the internet
A domain - Around 9.95/per year for a domain such as yourdomain.com. I recommend registering with http://www.enom.com
Affordable Shared Web Hosting - 5.00/per month (give or take)
That's what you are looking at expenses wise.
Feature wise, I'd recommend getting a provider who has "Fantastico De Luxe" or Installatron Script Installer. Both will provide you with one click script installs of many popular scripts which will give you he ability to do as you asked, "To be the administrator of my website, to be able to create the backgrounds, pictures, images, to edit all the news from time to time, to have a forum, picture thread.. etc etc, and all the other basic stuff a website entales." I'd also recommend cPanel web hosting control panel as it will ease management of your scripts/website.
All of this can be accomplished with some scripts such as Joomla, wordpress, and PHPBB3 which are all one click installs by using Fantastico De Luxe or Installatron.
There are many ways to find webhosts on these forums. It ranges from the "Find a Host" at the top of web hosting talk, to hosting providers replying to threads, to the "Offers Section". All of which are great ways to find a web hosting provider.
Hopefully this helps a bit...

I second Aquarius's recommendations for both one-click installer shared hosting and the Wordpress/PHPBB combo.
The Fantastico/Cpanel would make setup a breeze even for someone who knows little about web dev but isn't afraid of computers.
Both pieces of software are very accessible, easy to use, have really helpful communities behind them and Wordpress at least is very easy to customize with community add-ons or template to suit your needs.

Andrew,
You need to think of a domain name first of all. Once you've got that, see if you can buy it either through namecheap or godaddy or somewhere of your choice. Once you've bought the domain name, it's time to look for hosting. Yet again, GoDaddy does hosting and so do quite a few other places. Just google for webhosting or something. Once that's done, you'll have your server set up. A lot of times the hosting company will do the setup for you as far as name servers and all of that go on the server (if you go with something basic, meaning w/o Web Host Manager). After you have all of that set up, it's time to start making your site in dreamweaver(or your editor of choice) OR the you could use the ever-popular wordpress and download/upload templates to your server (through FTP). I would recommend going with Wordpress your first go-round as it is extremely easy to use and update and there are limitless widgets/gadgets/plugins to use for various things. I hope that helps! If you need more in-depth info, you can always reply to this thread as you go through each step! Let me know if I can help!
Thanks very much dude, nice input, but remeber :
OR the you could use the ever-popular wordpress and download/upload templates to your server (through FTP).
This is japanese to me mate haha... I know about wordpress ( and find it quite difficult at times )...
So where can I find a good domain name website so I can buy a domain?
and by the way, what sort of websites offer the best deals on names and stuff?.... If i buy one, Id want it to last a few years.
and can you get it Copy righted?

This is the Website im trying to mould my idea on :
Arsenal-mania.com

and all the other basic stuff a website entales." I'd also recommend cPanel web hosting control panel as it will ease management of your scripts/website.
All of this can be accomplished with some scripts such as Joomla, wordpress, and PHPBB3 which are all one click installs by using Fantastico De Luxe or Installatron.
hmmmmmm... im lost

1.I first started by learning html tags with another site like geocities if it's still around.
2.Clicking view-source will show you a pages contents in ie.
3.Basic HTML outline is something like (THE CAPS LOCK ISNT IMPORTANT):
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>PAGE TITLE GOES HERE</TITLE>
<BODY BGCOLOR=HEXCOLOR_CODE_HERE>
<B>BOLD TEXT</B>
<U>UNDERLINE TEXT</U>
<IMG SRC="HTTP://LOCATION/OF/IMAGE.JPG">
<A HREF="HTTP://WEBHOSTINGTALK.COM">LINK GOES TO WEBHOSTINGTALK.COM</A>
<BODY>
</HTML>
4.Then you can add things like scripts javascript runs in a clients browser, php on a server.
5.Also add those images like we used image tag.<IMG SRC="" BORDER="">
6.Data usely is stored in a database like MySQL ... thats why previous post suggested cpanel cause it auto installs things like phpbb.com (a forum script that requires/uses both mysql and php).
7.Hope this helps keep coming back for more help, you can get an account with someone like geocities first if your not ready to poney up for a .com. But a .com works if your serious and redy for it.... geocities is just for playing around.

I would suggest going from the start. wc3 schools online is the best place for it.
indeeeeeeeeeeeeed ^^

Ive sort of learnt the very basics of creating boarders, boxes, placing words to the left and right of the screens, adding colour into boxes.
But the boxes I create are quite boring.
Noticed just above this post there is a blue rectangle box, how do you add the " Gel " look into it?.. ot [;ace features like the date time or number post?
I mean, in a whole website, does the creator have to build it from scratch?
Any website where you can download templates for bars, frames, boarders etc?...

The best way to design a website is to design the mockup in fireworks or photoshop. Add in lipsum text as place holders and get it exactly the way you want it. Then and only then, do you consider how to turn it into a website by slicing the graphics and creating an html/css home to put them in.
Any bars and buttons you download are not going to look fresh and are not going to create a professional design.

Agreed with Scott. He hit the nail on the head. If you want anything you do to look professional, the best way is to design, design, design before you even think of coding. Get a basic idea of the functionality in your head as you go, but, by all means, make sure you get the look down in photoshop/fireworks first! Take a look at psdtuts.com/nettuts.com they both have a couple of walk-throughs for making a website in photoshop.